


The Taming of Fen'Harel

by beaubashley



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-typical Slavery, Eventual Smut, F/M, Light Bondage, Minor Tevinter Nights spoilers, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, a little bit of angst with the happiest ending, and it's not even sexy, but only for the first five chapters or so, quarantine has me turning travel into wish fulfillment, road trip au, tevinter nights compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:47:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubashley/pseuds/beaubashley
Summary: Six years after the events of the Exalted Council, Fen’Harel and his forces are about to turn the tide in the war for Thedas.  Unbeknownst to him, ex-Inquisitor Savh’vuni Lavellan has other plans in mind.Never in his wildest dreams did Solas expect a vacation to be at the top of her list of priorities, but now that Savh’vuni has him where she wants him, he’s faced with an impossible decision:Continue to put up a token resistance, or actually enjoy himself?What’s the Dread Wolf to do?…A post-trespasser Road Trip AU.  Updates biweekly.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel | Solas/Female Lavellan, Lavellan & Solas
Comments: 101
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

* * *

Cole had betrayed him. 

_Cole_.

Cole, who Solas had always thought was incapable of willfully deceiving anyone, had managed to ensnare him in this scheme of Savh’vuni’s...or at least, he could only assume it was due to the ex-Inquisitor’s provocation that the present set of events had come to pass. Here he was, trapped in her dreamscape and everything.

They were in the endgame now. There was assuredly some desperation behind Cole’s decision to participate. It was foolish of him to drop his guard as he had, but he had been working off of faulty information, which—thinking on it now—must have been the plan all along. 

And what did that say about him and his plans if even compassion incarnate could rally against his own nature to trick him in this way? Solas shook the thought away before it could take root.

He tugged at the snares that tied his joints together like a vindictive snake to distract himself. A useless gesture; his tugging only tightened them further and caused the leather to pull painfully on the scruff of his fur. He tried to will them away, closing his eyes and focusing on being _not_ ensnared, on being _free_ and not so unbearably _foolish_. He looked down, already knowing the answer from the way his joints started to ache. All of his years of wisdom and knowledge and near complete command over the Fade, and yet here he was, bested by some slips of hide and an unconscious mortal with a stubborn streak wider than the Waking Sea. Solas let out an exasperated groan, although the sound came out more as a quiet whining howl.

Regardless of how much control he had over the Fade, ultimately, this wasn’t his dream, and—ergo—he wasn’t the one that was truly in control. If the dreamer's own will was great enough, then he was rendered helpless to their dreaming. Unfortunately for him, Savh’vuni Lavellan had an overabundance of willfulness and he did not expect the lake of it to run dry any time soon. Solas took in a breath, trying to ground himself and sort this honestly ridiculous mess out. He would have to be patient and hope that if Savh’vuni did come upon him in his compromised state that he could remain aloof. He could hold onto that, he had more important matters to attend than luxuriating in his own wolf-shaped humility. He could weather his own foolishness until she woke. If anything, being tied up in such a way would probably help cut down on any traitorous temptation to reach for Savh’vuni if she came too close. Really, he should be thanking her.

Bearing this in mind, he settled in.

Solas tried his best to get comfortable with his fluffy ass over kettle and his paws all strapped together in the snowy landscape of Lavellan’s subconscious. He could almost manage it, turning about in a way such that the strain on his shoulders and hips was bearable, but as the dream continued to drag on with no perceivable end in sight Solas had the thought that maybe he should do more to escape. Despite his curiosity at what Savh’vuni had planned, he could not afford any distractions. Maybe that was the start of his downfall, the deep secret compulsion to _know_ , especially when it came to Savh’vuni Lavellan. Ironically, what he should have known was not to underestimate what his heart was capable of. 

As if summoned by his train of thought, Savh’vuni approached. He bared the teeth along his muzzle with a tenuous growl—tense and defensive.

“Now, now. None of that,” she chided, finally coming into view. She waved her hand, lighting an enchantment embedded into the snares. A great surge rushed through him before his lupine guise was reversed against his will. 

That was disquieting. 

Being tangled up like an opulent hog for roasting definitely wasn’t doing much to dissuade the feeling. He rolled his shoulders, twisting his wrists this way and that, but it only tugged his knees into his stomach, pressing armor and leather into spots they were better off not being. He did his best to look up at her, but the angle wasn’t helping matters. Frustration bloomed in the pit of his stomach. 

“Must you strip me of even the slightest dignity?” he huffed, unable to stop himself from pulling at his restraints again. He knew that steady look in her eyes, and he knew that whatever it was she had planned—and she most certainly had a plan—needed to be as far removed from himself as possible. Savh’vuni caught onto his panic, as if she scented it on the wind. 

“Says the man with all his clothes still on,” she said, teasing and confident. The frustration ebbed. “Speaking of which, I have something for you.” 

Savh’vuni leisurely approached him, as if capturing the greatest threat to her world at large was something she did on the daily. He was relatively sure it wasn’t. She kneeled by his head, slowly unwrapping and detangling a familiar leather chord. His necklace, he realized belatedly, the one he had left for her: a vain hope for her to remember him, something to ease his own conscience—a selfish mistake. It didn’t look the same as it had when he had left it tucked away at her desk for her to find long after he was beyond her reach. Now the jawbone was coated in runed enchantments—the grooves and stones catching in the ethereal light. 

Savh’vuni deftly wove the cords through the fingers of her only hand and over his head, securing it around his neck with a gentleness he had not anticipated. The jawbone fell to the snow as he turned his gaze between the item in question and the Inquisitor. 

She looked too self-satisfied. Solas would have to do something about that, because that look could mean nothing but ruin.

“It would be rude of me to take back a gift.”

“Oh no, I insist.” She sat back on her heels, taking him in with an intensity that made his skin prickle uncomfortably. “I added a brand new Dagna-approved feature that I’ve been dying to try out. Thank you for volunteering.”

“And what would that be, besides the assumed nullification of my magic? I hear that is coming in standard nowadays.” At least he could still muster petulance. What a relief.

“Discovery and progress, right? So convenient. No, rather, I’m alluding to the impressive trick I’m about to pull. With a snap of my fingers, you’ll be transported physically through the Fade and to precisely where I want you on the other side.”

“Into some sort of impenetrable prison, I presume? With absolutely no hope of escape?” As if such a thing was possible. 

“No, worse I’m afraid.” Savh’vuni leaned down to level her face with his, bringing her hand between them, fingers a breadth away from his nose. She snapped and the dream began to break. He felt fire through his veins, a thousand little talons digging into his skin. His entirety was locked to Savh’vuni, every thought and panicked sound gravitating to a single point. She smiled, eyes gleaming and hopeful. 

“My bed.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I have your attention, let's get to the exposition.
> 
> Feel free to enjoy this chapter with my questionable taste in music: [the official TToF'H Spotify playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/461MyjSK8R7khkRP4xuT9h)

* * *

* * *

When Solas finally came to, several things were not as they should be and a sweeping sense of wrongness sparked in his brain like a flare of magic reaching towards the heavens. 

Firstly, everything was too warm, _he_ was too warm. There were furs both below him and around him, atop the armor and leather he was already wearing. A fire crackled happily away in a hearth at his feet and he was sweltering underneath it all.

Secondly, the walls were all wrong. No great crumbling spires reaching towards a missing cathedral ceiling and up to a vast night sky. This was not one of his ancient sanctuaries or safe houses. This place was a patched mix of thatched hay and wood—dense, damp, and completely foreign. 

Finally, Savh'vuni was standing above him, poking incessantly at his cheek, then at his chin, shortly followed by his jaw.

“It worked, it worked, Elgar’nan’s hairy _ass_ it worked!” she said under her breath with one last jab of her finger at the scar on his forehead. She stood, rocking back gracefully on her heels as she wiped a hand across her face and looked around the room.

Solas closed his eyes, taking a breath to try to center himself. He was overworked, exhausted. What other state could be expected of him with how he had been running himself ragged over the past six years? This was the culmination of it—a fever dream with Savh'vuni “Doomer of Plans Both Ancient and Forgotten” Lavellan at its center. That such a thing was more or less impossible for him to experience notwithstanding. Given the current set of events, it could no longer be ruled out. 

He looked listlessly at the ceiling and tried his best to ignore the other person in the room as she went about from place to place like a frenzied wisp of movement in his periphery. This couldn’t be happening, because if she was actually, truly, _physically_ in the same room as he was, then he may have finally gone off the deep end, and that was more than he was presently equipped to handle.

“Oh, you’re awake. Sorry about that,” Savh'vuni said, looking down at him over her shoulder. She only spared him the briefest of glances as she stuffed an already over-encumbered pack with a small pouch of what appeared to be herbs and clippings. “How are you feeling?”

His head was throbbing and it felt like he had swallowed a jagged river stone that was leisurely passing its way through his stomach lining, but if he fixated on the singular strand of hay that was falling out of its clump above his head, he could almost imagine this wasn’t happening. “I am well enough, considering.”

“Considering that I just managed the impossible? _Ha!_ ” She slammed the drawer she had been shuffling through closed with her hip, a stitched notebook and a velvet pouch in hand. “When you put it like that, then I am doing _very_ _well_ myself, thank you for asking.” She tossed them towards her pack—he watched as the items careened over him, landing with a dull thud beside their target—before opening another drawer.

Solas tried to sit up, but found his movement greatly hindered by the same entrapments that had bound him in the Fade. He supposed he should be grateful that she had at least thought to unbind his legs and let him lie flat against the ground, but he was finding it hard to feel anything remotely close to charitable. She had promised him the bed, not the floor.

“Are the restraints truly necessary?” His tone was neutral, but she could pick up on the thread of indignant frustration. He knew she had caught it when she paused in her rummaging long enough for the sound of the crackling fire to swallow up the room. She knew what to listen for when it came to him, and it was so peculiar that he had somehow forgotten that in their time apart.

“Hmm, maybe not, but they do something for me. I can’t seem to recall exactly what at the moment...” She tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully, making a great show of having an epiphany before she smacked her palm against her forehead with a laugh. “Right, yes, they keep massively dreadful wolves from manifesting in my bedroom. How could I forget?” 

“I would not resort to such measures.” The indignancy wound its way to the forefront. 

“My reports from Sutherland say otherwise.”

Ah. Right. Regret. He had read the same report she had—probably even before she had the chance to, with how abysmally security had degraded within her ranks since Leliana’s departure from the Inquisition. 

“You know perfectly well that was not my doing. Intentionally.” The last bit was tacked on in the weakest attempt to save whatever face he had left.

“Funny how your intentions always contradict reality,” Savh'vuni said. The truth of her remark should not sting as sharply as it did. He supposed she had a point. She stood over him again, looking down at him with her hand on her hip—assessing. She let the moment hang, before coming to a conclusion. “The shackles stay on.”

She nodded down at him once, as if she had decided on some trivial hindrance, before going back to her task. Solas looked away as she stepped over him; she was bare legged, and he didn’t want to imagine what else might be in the same state under her long sleep shirt. Once she cleared him and stood on the other side of the room, he gingerly sat up, each muscle screaming at the effort, like nails digging into the skin of his back. He flinched, but managed all the same.

A wad of cloth hit him square in the face when he was finally upright, and he let out a wholly undignified sound that negated all the hardfought composure he had been working toward. She didn’t even spare him a glance.

“You’ll need to change.”

“And how do you propose I go about doing so?” he asked. She turned towards him, and he held up his jointed wrists.

She cocked her hip, her hand resting against the curve of it and shifting her nightshirt marginally higher on her lean thighs. “Are you trying to tell me that in all of your many, many, _many_ years, you’ve never been in a comparable position?”

“Nothing springs to mind, no.” But there were some that sat like a hazy beacon in his memory; magic that could be manipulated in such a way to complete the task. Savh'vuni did not need to know that. 

“Huh,” she said, “you led a rather tame eternity.” She approached him, placing a patronizing hand on his shoulder. “You are very clever, Solas, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

She crossed the room to the door, opening it before turning to him again. “It’s a little strange to be in the same room again, don’t you think?” 

She didn’t wait for his answer and shut the door behind her.

Solas stared, slack-jawed and uncertain, his hands flexing in the wadded clothing sitting in his lap. How right she was. Stranger still was how natural it had been to slip back into her company, like no time had passed at all. 

Savh'vuni was like that—a whirlwind that had caught him in its center. It had been that way since he had first taken her hand to close that initial rift before she was Inquisitor, and it was that way even when he continued to watch her in the Fade. He had compromised everything by being drawn to her in such a way, but he could not manage to keep himself away, and then when Cole had come to him in that frantic way of his, shaken and spilling what he had thought to be genuine fear, well, what else could he have expected of himself? Foolish. Reckless. Now look at the mess he was in.

Time to test his new chains. He doubted that the purpose of the snares could be taken at face value. 

Solas stood, letting the clothes fall to the floor. His hands might be tied, but that was not his greatest concern at the moment. No, the most worrisome was how dampened his connection to the Fade felt now that he attuned himself to it. She had not completely stripped him of all of his magic as he had originally assumed she would, but the snares definitely tampered with it; diluted it to a level that felt suffocating at best and debilitating at worst. It was like the first days after he had woken from uthenera, weak-legged and overwhelmed. Still, she could have severed his connection entirely, either through the snares themselves or more drastic measures. He had half-expected to wake up tranquil. At least Felassan would have someone to join him in his treatments then—

Solas shook himself. Savh’vuni would never resort to such measures. How had he forgotten that? Regardless, her kindness was an oversight, or perhaps, an unwarranted mercy—a mistake either way, and one he would take advantage of given the chance.

He called various elements to himself in quick succession to test the limit of his magical reach—fire, storm, then ice; all present and accounted for, but on a much smaller scale than he was accustomed to as of late. He tried to light the snares on fire, but all that did was singe the fine hairs on his forearms before he put the fire out. The material itself was resistant to any tampering then. He sighed. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

His rift magic was still intact, as well as the shallow pull of the anchor, which would prove useful for enacting an escape as soon as he had a better understanding of what he was facing outside of the Inquisitor’s personal quarters. 

Solas pushed it further, looking within himself to the steady pulse of Mythal humming beneath it all. Her essence sat snuggly within him, and he let out a relieved breath. It pulsed stronger than all his other meager connections, perhaps it had not been dampened by the snares; his abstracted connection to a power that was not entirely his circumventing the runed magic Savh’vuni had embedded into her entrapments. He pressed further in, following the thread of Mythal that lit up and connected to where Savh’vuni was in the next room, the Well thrumming and responding to his prodding. Another oversight in his favor. He could bring this all to an end right now with a single word. Solas could command her to release him. 

The thought alone left him feeling painfully frozen, like ice water flooding his lungs. How could he even consider the notion of controlling her to such an extent? It was everything he had ever fought against, and he had considered it as if Savh’vuni personhood was a petty negligence. Solas felt sick from how narrowly he had almost compromised his own beliefs. His principles. He pushed through it, focusing instead on figuring out how much wiggle room the ex-Inquisitor had granted him.

Solas decided to try to push his magic to a greater capacity, and he tried to shapeshift. He pictured the full scale and configuration of the beast that always sat hungry at the back of his mind, until sparking pops ran up his arms and the leather began to glow—sending little volts into his mana pool and sapping it just enough to combat what was being willed into being. Like tiny smites keeping his physicality in check. It was brilliantly effective and yet not excessive—it did exactly as it meant to without causing any great harm. Astounding. He should expect nothing less of Savh'vuni, but it still begged the question of why. Why not render him completely helpless? Why not strip him of any access to his magic? 

Despite his curiosity, one thing was certain: he needed to get out of there. 

Solas made no attempt to act on that inclination, which was painfully on trend for him. No, regardless of his complaints, Solas managed to dress himself with only moderate difficulty. Sure, he had not intended to draw upon ancient frivolous spells better left forgotten to his youth, but it served his purpose well enough; luckily for him, the spell within the acceptable threshold regulated by the entrapments. He even managed to fold and pile his previous attire neatly on the corner of Savh'vuni's bed. He could remain civil, and the small task gave him something to focus on.

The only uncertainty left now was what to do next. He needed to get back to his own forces, he needed an escape plan, and then he needed to actually execute said hypothetical plan. Could he just walk out the door? Would Savh'vuni have some contingency to stop him? Could she even stop him if it came down to it, even with his magic curtailed? Solas knew the answer, but the thought of resorting to such measures against her sent an unpleasant lump into his throat and he could not swallow around it.

A knock came at the door and saved him from having to think on the matter further.

“Are you decent?” Savh'vuni asked from the otherside. He found it marginally ridiculous that she was even giving him space in that way, ridiculous and a larger kindness than he was probably due. A sign of trust that he was determined to take at surface value rather than comb through all the layers to see if they revealed some better understanding of what exactly was going on beneath it all.

She opened the door a crack before peeking her head around with her eyes covered. “I’m not trying to catch sight of your glorious backside, I swear, but I forgot something in here.” A beat. “Solas?”

Oh. He wanted to laugh at her absurdity. This had to be what it felt like to finally break, because he just wanted to laugh forever. Here she was acting as silly as she always had, and he had betrayed her and left her, and yet she was still herself at the end of it. All of his actions still hadn’t changed the whole of her. He was grateful, but he could not afford to be. This was a dream. This wasn’t real. She hadn’t managed the impossible by pulling him physically through every layer and fabric of the Fade and into reality on the other side. This was a madness that he had no understanding of.

He couldn’t care—he _shouldn’t_ care—about her pureness or her playfulness or her recklessness by putting him into this situation. It was getting harder to push the feeling down. It kept baring its teeth at him each time it rose to the forefront of his mind and threatened to bite down on his heart, never to let go. 

“I am decent,” he said with a small shake of his head. He didn’t even notice the ties around his wrists or how they were abrading his skin because all he could do was watch her as she coyly looked at him between her index and thumb. That was easier. That was safer than letting his thoughts get away from him.

“Aw,” she whined, “what’s the point then?” She went to the corner by the fireplace, picking up a leather case that he had not noticed before. Savh'vuni brought it over to the bed, hefting it onto the downy surface before working the case open with her singular hand. “You don’t mind if I get this going, do you?”

“This?” He should really learn to bite his tongue. 

She gave him a look. _The_ look, really. The one she would get after long hours in the Undercroft with Dagna, waist deep in some creation of theirs, where she always ended up victorious in the battle for greater arcane advancement. The one that had meant that Solas needed to seize any piece of restraint he had within himself as she headed from her scientific victory straight to him in need of physical affirmation of her accomplishments. 

He was not often successful then, and was more or less panicking now.

Savh'vuni swiftly pulled the sleeping gown she wore over her head which did absolutely nothing to abate the frenzy already building in his chest. He averted his eyes. She gave a laugh, not quite condemning, but close enough.

“Are we doing the, _‘I’ve never seen you naked before and definitely never ever been intimate with you in any way that would make this less awkward’_ game? Because, to be honest, it’s not my favorite. Also, it’s a mouthful. Much like yourself.” 

His ears burned. How did she always manage it? She was childish and flighty, and he had armies to lead and Veils to sunder while he was standing there like a pubescent fool staring at the bare chest of his ex-lover. 

He cleared his throat, trying to somehow put himself together within the short sound of it, and gestured towards the case with his linked hands.“Some creation of yours, I assume?” 

Savh'vuni bit her lip, a habit that tipped her hand—she was nervous. “Yes.” She flipped the lid open, and he came around the bed to see what contents it held.

It was an arm—a prosthetic—welded from some of the purest ores Solas had seen in this Veiled world. He knew that if June were capable of still doing so at the moment, he would be drooling at the sight of it—the long lean lines of metal, the craftsmanship of the jointed plating and coils and fine rune work. The intricate layering of lyrium and, if the twisted hum that vibrated off the device was any indication, blood magic infused into one flawless creation. 

He could tell her that now; there was nothing barring him from paying her such a compliment. He had often kept them to himself during their shared time with the Inquisition, when he could not risk his identity being compromised for something so innocuous. She still bore June’s vallaslin, but she would never know how her skill set would have given her acclaim in his high court. That her brilliance and delivery on such lofty mechanical ideas would have put her in his same social circles. That in another world, they could have met and known one another as equals from the very start. And wasn’t that a pleasantly wasted thought?

He was too close to her. That was the issue, the proximity. He fixed the problem with a few well-chosen steps away. 

Savh'vuni paid him no mind as she flipped open a latch on the inside of the lid. A sharp curved blade no longer than a finger sprang up from the slot. Without hesitation she brought her palm to its tip and, with a practiced jerk of her wrist, slashed through the skin there. Solas could not stop the instinct to reach for her, catching himself at the last moment. Her gaze flicked to him briefly as she clenched her hand tightly, flexing it open before closing it fast again to get the blood flowing from the cut. She brought the side of her fisted hand down towards a large red gem embedded into the top of the metallic forearm and there she held it as blood began to drip off her skin and onto its deep glossy surface. The blood absorbed into the stone almost immediately, and Solas could feel the twist in the Veil as it weakened against the magic at work. She continued to feed the bloodstone until the flow of it started to taper off, the cut starting to clot. 

Savh'vuni stood straighter, extending her arm out in front of her with her hand open and facing the metal arm still in its case. Her eyes slid shut as she took in a deep breath, the finer hairs on her skin standing on end. He could feel the magic rushing out of her, connecting to her creation until the lyrium embedded into the prosthetic began to glow, pulsing and growing stronger with each wave of its blue light. 

Savh'vuni gave a shuddering exhale as she opened her eyes, going up on the balls of her feet before coming back down. She shook out her right hand, shaking her arm as if to loosen the muscles while tilting her neck from side to side. Her long black hair swung about in its ponytail, and all Solas could think was that she was building herself up to continue with her task. He had seen her do something similar before, this strange frantic ritual of calming both her mind and body before she lunged into action. He recalled how she had shaken from head to toe before the Battle of Adamant, when the trepidation started to creep in. She was approaching what was to come next from the same headspace she did for a battlefront. 

She moved forward, picking up the arm and cradling it against her chest with some assistance from the amputated end of her left as she fiddled with some tab on the top of the prosthetic. She managed it after a few false starts, her finger hooking through a latch as she gripped the width of the arm with the rest of her fingers. 

All Solas could do was watch as the ex-Inquisitor steeled herself. She held her breath, eyes determinedly fixating on a spot across the room, as she attached the arm. He could see her biting the inside of her cheek, could see the way each muscle in her chest and back tightened and tensed in a frightening way. She gave the prosthetic a twist, setting it into its proper calibration, adjusting it with a few tweaks this way and that, her body flinching with each minute movement, until finally she let the held latch go. With a whirring hiss the arm seemed to fuse against her skin, the smell of charring flesh fragrant in the air as Savh'vuni turned to spit blood into the basin beside her bed. 

Well. That was certainly something. 

“Pretty amazing, right?” she asked after a moment, her voice hoarse despite the eerie silence that had accompanied the whole affair. 

“Is that what we are settling on?” He observed her as she gave her new arm a few bends, examining the movement of each finger; The lifelike quality with which it moved was unsettling to behold. “I suppose it is a comfort to know that you have kept yourself busy.” 

“Well, I can’t let you have all the fun.” She turned her back to him, stretching in a way that let him watch the muscles expand there. The way the sharp curve of her shoulder blade shifted beneath her skin as she rolled her left arm in its socket to test the new weight of it.

“You could. You should be enjoying what time remains instead of devising new ways to torment yourself. I am relatively certain that this is, in fact, the exact opposite of what I wished for you.”

“Oh this?” She waved the metallic limb, which moved effortlessly. “This is just for a laugh. Also, convenience. Once you get past the mind-numbing pain of searing metal with your own flesh, it has so many uses.”

“And this?” Solas picked the jawbone necklace between the thumb and forefinger of one of his bound hands, the other lifted limply along with it. 

“ _Fenedhis_ , I almost forgot about that!” And then a _very_ bare-chested Savh'vuni was in his breathing space, taking the leather chords of the necklace into her mismatched hands and pulling it off of him. Her naked chest brushed against him, and he focused intently on a strand of her hair that was askew in her fringe, a bright red line of June’s vallaslin peaking through the dense curtain of her black hair. 

“Can’t have you getting any ideas about escaping, can we?” she continued, oblivious to his turmoil. “Besides, if you do manage it, I’ll just pull you through again.”

“What makes you think I would fall for the same trick twice?” Knowing his record, he would undoubtedly fall for the same trick again, especially if she wrapped it up in some other pretty package to distract him—much like she was doing now in all of her bare-skinned glory. 

She put the jawbone around her own neck, and that time he _did_ look when it settled happily between the soft crests of her breasts. She gave a smile that he did not see. “Intuition.”

His line of sight was broken as Savh'vuni moved away from him, grabbing up a blouse and pants from atop her dresser and putting them on in quick, fluid motions. It wasn’t until she had secured the final button on her trousers, her top tucked into the hem at her waist and safely hiding away all the tempestuous skin beneath it, that he could finally begin to relax. 

“Come, come. We’ve got quite the day ahead of us.” Savh'vuni closed the case that had held her prosthetic, bringing it over to the bag she had overstuffed and latching it to the bottom. There had been a second pack beside it that had been hidden behind the gargantuan size of her own, and she picked it up and held it out to him. He stared. She shook it a bit, as if to wake him from his daze, before rolling her eyes and throwing it at him. He managed to catch it, if only just. 

“Pack your things, we may need them. Or we can sell them. Or you can drop them off with one of your agents before we leave. Up to you, really, there are so many possibilities.”

“Forgive me, I am not following. Are we going somewhere? Did you not simply bring me here to imprison me indefinitely? Or perhaps kill me?”

Savh'vuni let out a surprised laugh, as if the idea was somehow detached from their current reality, where the two of them were on opposite ends of a very real war for the future of Thedas. 

“No, what would that even accomplish?” She wiped a mirthful tear from the corner of her eye with a metal thumb. “The first of your people don’t die so easily, right? You told me that. So!” —she clapped her hands together, the sound distinctly off from the slap of metal against skin— “I’ve got something much better in mind.”

He could feel the headache forming in his temples already. If there was one thing he definitively remembered about the woman in front of him, it was her stubbornness. Solas himself was a willful man, he could turn his words and intent to bend even the strongest of minds, but Savh'vuni managed to do much of the same without all his clever conversation and effacing of the truth. No, she would wear away at whatever obstacle was preventing her from what she had her sights on. She was pervasive, insistent, like a scrape that would slowly start festering into a sepsis. This did not bode well.

“I would appreciate any enlightenment you can bring to the situation, Inquisitor.” He had said the wrong thing if the way her lower lip jutted out at was any indication. 

“Let’s go on a trip,” she said, her voice carrying to him as she walked into the next room.

Solas followed her, stopping in the doorway as he took the cramped space in. A small couch was braced against one wall, a basin and counter were across the room near the only window, and a round table sat in the center, surrounded by thin wooden chairs. How very quaint. It was nondescript as anything, no visible sign of Savh'vuni anywhere besides from herself standing in the center of the room.

“A trip?” he asked, his vision stuck on a crumbling patch of wall in the corner to his right.

She picked up another bag from the table, throwing it across her chest and back before adjusting where it sat on her hip. “Now you're getting it.”

Solas let out a sigh. He did not have the energy to deal with her willful fancies. The headache was now reaching behind his eyes. 

“Savh'vuni,” he said, trying again and hoping he could soften her with the use of her name this time. “I do not have time for your games. I must get back to my forces. You have kept me long enough.”

“You misunderstand me, Solas.” She faced him now, tall and straight-backed, her bottomless eyes holding him in that disarming way of hers. “We’re _going_ on a trip. You and me, together, all across Thedas.”

And what in the Void was he supposed to say to that? He looked around him, trying and failing to process what was actually happening, because certainly _this_ wasn’t it. 

Savh'vuni continued, unfazed. “You need a vacation, _I_ need a vacation. Two birds, meet stone. Also, did I mention that it was not optional?”

“I— _You—”_ Solas took in a breath, putting his face in his bound hands for a moment. “You cannot possibly be serious.”

But she was. Of course, how could he have thought she was capable of anything less than exactly what she said? Not five minutes later did he find himself strapped down with supplies and standing dumbly in a bustling courtyard in Wycome.

Solas wondered idly how Fen’Harel, He Who Hunts Alone, Lord of Tricksters, Roamer of the Beyond, etcetera, had found himself about to set off on an, if not enlightening, then thoroughly time-wasting abduction. Savh'vuni stepped out of the house to join him outside. She closed the door shut behind her, placing a palm flat against the wood and closing her eyes as she rested her forehead against it—as if in parting—before coming to stand beside him. 

Before Solas could open his mouth to complain or persuade her against whatever actions she was planning, a large warm cloak came around him, over the pack he had finagled onto his shoulders and his bound hands, and Savh'vuni secured it around his neck. She gave him a wide smile—one that caused her eyes to become little crescents against her lashes and the gap between her front teeth a little more prominent. She smoothed out the collar, her hand resting against the top of his chest. 

“Comfy?” she asked, still squarely in his space. It rendered him mute as her proximity and care often did during their time together with the Inquisition. He nodded, momentarily lost in the intimacy of her caring for him like that. “Great. I’ve got to say my goodbyes before we’re off. Have you decided on what to do?”

“Do?” It hadn’t seemed like he had much choice in the matter. 

“With your clothes? One of your top secret drop spots is on the way, or if you’d rather that agent of yours...shoot, what was her name…Vher’ana? Vher’lana? I know there’s a cat in there somewhere. Anyways, she’s on the other side of town, which I’m sure you already know.” 

He chuckled. Of course she knew of all his forces within her clan’s now permanent home, but why was she giving that information away to him now? To unsettle him in some way? She would be hard pressed to manage it more than she already had that morning. 

“I will keep them, I do not plan to stay long.”

“Ah,” she began to walk ahead of him, hoping to hide the smile that was forming. He could hear it in her tone, regardless. “But you do plan to stay.”

Solas cleared his throat, following. “If you would permit me, I will need to leave orders at my ‘top secret, yet known to my enemies’ drop before we depart to wherever it is that you are absconding me to.”

“You make it sound so romantic.”

Had he always had this constant, quiet screaming in the back of his mind? He could not recall. Before he could think of some pacifying remark, Savh'vuni called out, her long legs carrying her quickly to whomever she was greeting. 

“Pae!” she said with a wave, approaching a towering man with hair and skin the same color as Savh'vuni's. “ _On dhea_.” 

Solas stopped a ways off, caught in this awkward space of both belonging and not. He did not want to encroach. Did not want to assume. Did not want to be here at all, but that was something he could not change at present. How exactly did one go about greeting the father of the woman who you loved, but not enough to spare her in your own world-altering goals? He had never thought of it so plainly before, and his stomach stirred uneasily as he bobbed only a short way away from the two elves, who were conversing loud enough for him to catch it. 

“ _On dhea, da’vun._ You are off?” The man responded, his voice deep and rumbling like a landslide.

Savh'vuni gave a quick nod, the motion rocking the whole long line of her body. “Yes. Everything is set. We’ll make our way to Amaranthine by next month’s end with the supplies.” 

“Be sure to use the mountain pass. The snows will be melting by then, and it will be safest from bandits.”

“Yes, Pae, I know.” The warmth and familiarity with which Savh'vuni talked with her father made Solas ache in ways that he had not considered before. She had a whole life, a whole family, a whole connection and belonging outside of what he had known of her. Naturally, of course she would. He was not a part of it. It should not matter, and maybe it was the sun rising just above the cobbled rooftops that made everything seem so clear that it was almost blinding.

“If you knew, I would not be telling you. We will be leaving to meet the other clans soon. We must be prepared.” Her father nodded in his direction. “That’s him? What all this fuss is for?” Solas did not miss the subtle way her father’s hand went up to her metal arm.

“Play nice, he is our guest,” Savh'vuni warned.

“As you say, Vuni.” His tone promised no compliance.

“Solas,” she said, gesturing for him to come closer. “This is my father, Soun’ise. Pae, Solas.”

Solas nodded to Soun’ise on reflex, but the man held him in his gaze, unimpressed.

Savh'vuni cleared her throat. “Well, then. Pae, I have some business with Deshanna before we leave.” She went up to her father, placing a kiss upon his cheek. The man softed immediately towards his daughter, holding her face in one of his heavily scarred hands. 

“Be safe, _da’vun_. Do not waver,” he said, bringing their foreheads together. Solas felt distinctly like a voyeur on a familial moment that was not his to witness.

“I will strike true. Give my love to Mamae and the rest.” Savh'vuni held the outside of her father’s hand against her cheek, leaning into him before stepping back. 

“Dread Wolf,” Soun’ise said before Solas could follow. “A moment.”

Solas did not often find himself intimidated, but there was a sort of principle about dealing with the father of the woman who had held, and continued to hold, his heart in such a way. Even as ancient and powerful as he was, this man held a sway through his relation that Solas did not. 

“Pae,” Savh'vuni warned again, but it turned into a laugh at the end. 

“Yes, yes. No hunting, go on.” He made a playful shooing motion and Savh'vuni shook her head. She gave Solas a look that could only be interpreted as _“good luck”_ before she went on her way. 

Soun’ise folded his hands across his broad chest, standing fully upright, and Solas had not realized how he had been cowing himself around his daughter. He was a large man, standing a few inches taller than Solas himself, and a good breadth wider. The muscles of his bare arms were thick and toned, the scars that ran along his skin displaying a life of bountiful hunts. He bore Elgar’nan’s vallaslin in deep blues that consumed most of his face.

“My daughter may have barred me from bringing any harm to you while you are in her care, but do not take my restraint as anything but a deep want to see you suffer in all the ways that you have brought to my family.”

Ah. So this was not a friendly chat...not that Solas had expected it to be. Well, luckily for him, he too had years of carefully crafted intimidation tactics, and had more ample time to hone them than Soun’ise in his short quickling life. 

“Do you not fear any retribution by expressing such an opinion to me?” He kept his face purposefully neutral, the mask he wore so easily slipping neatly onto his cheeks. “I have no doubts that your daughter has already shared my true identity with you.”

“I fear no gods, Wolf. I have never let them hold sway over my heart. No god with all their power would need to abandon their people as ours have, and if they did, then I hold no great love for them regardless.”

Several things about Savh'vuni suddenly clicked into place. Solas gave a small laugh. 

“I can see where your daughter gets her reverent nature.” 

A mistake. Solas could see Soun’ise’s fingers twitch for a blade that was not on his person. “Do not joke about my blood while I am in earshot again, or I’ll have your fur stripped for use in the outhouse.”

Solas swallowed. Soun’ise was capable of painting a very clear picture of where Solas stood with him, that was for sure. “Forgive me, I meant no offense. I hold Savh'vuni in the highest esteem.”

“You should not, it would have saved her a great deal of heartache.”

“Perhaps you are right.” It felt like he had the wind knocked out of him as the image of Savh'vuni—quiet in a way he had never known her to be and suffering alone—came unbidden to his mind.

Soun’ise put his hands on his hips, the stance somehow making him appear even broader. “When I asked her how she knew if this would work, she responded with one thing.” Solas felt his pulse quicken as Soun’ise continued, “‘ _He_ _will_ _come_ _for_ _me_ ’. She refused to accept any other alternatives.” For the first time in their conversation, the man smiled. A wide grin that split his face; his teeth had the same gap as his daughter, right down the middle. “She must know you well, because here you are.”

“So it would seem.” Solas could still remember the phantom grip of the fear that he had seized within him when Cole had come to him in a quiet panic, all implication and frantic rambling, and Solas had acted before he could even consider the consequences.

“We are both at the mercy of a stubborn woman. Creators preserve us.”

Solas sighed. “As if they would be bothered,” he said, mostly to himself.

Soun’ise gave a laugh, a sharp barking sound straight from his chest. “Yes, I imagine you would know. Spare a favor then, Solas, for an old man.” The use of his name jolted him, putting him more on edge. “Go with her. Listen. And then let my daughter go.”

And what a decent favor that was. Solas suddenly had a very clear understanding of the kind of father the man before him was. The kind of care and devotion he had given to his daughter and probably extended to the rest of his clan in turn. The sort of love that could mold Savh'vuni into the force of good that she was known to be—the same force that had captivated and held him and now threatened him in a very real way. 

“If age is the basis for favors, then I am undeniably certain that it should be you who owes one to me.” Solas tried for levity, hoping to ease the anxiety rising in his chest. “And what makes you think that I have not already done so?”

“You are here.”

So he was.

Soun’ise was gracious in that he did not shove his victory in Solas’ face, instead giving a dismissive wave of his hand. “Off with you. She is not often patient.” 

Solas looked in the direction Soun’ise tilted his head towards, finding Savh'vuni standing a ways off, antsy as anything as she rocked in place, looking around her and giving small returned greetings to the people who passed. 

“A pleasure,” Solas said with a nod, before heading towards the ex-Inquisitor. 

She smiled when he approached. Disarming and genuine. Surprisingly relieved. “Did you have a pleasant chat?”

“It was...informative. Antagonistic, but informative all the same.”

“It’s a good thing that I decided against abandoning you completely.” She walked on, a step ahead as they made it down the snowy street. “Anyways, I have some books to leave with my Keeper before we are off.”

“Off to where, exactly? It would be helpful for my forces to know where they can contact me.”

“As if you can’t just pop into their dreams to tell them directly, but yes, for the sake of decorum, we are heading north.”

“North?” He shifted, trying to right the pack beneath his cloak from where it was sliding off his shoulder. “Is that all.”

“It might actually be south, now that I’m thinking about it, I suppose we’ll have to find out.” 

Savh'vuni turned up a small path, banked by a well-tended garden still covered by a thin layer of fresh snow. She walked up to the door, knocking an incessant rhythm that did not stop until the door was flung open by a person with thin hands and a thinner face. They smiled warmly up at the both of them.

“Vuni, please. You know it takes these bones of mine time to get to the door. You need only knock once.” 

“But then how would you know it’s me, Deshanna?”

“Believe me, child, I would know.”

Savh'vuni went into the house behind her Keeper and held the door open for Solas. She closed it when he crossed the threshold, cutting off the crisp wind that tried to make its way in behind them. 

“Welcome to my home, Fen’Harel,” Deshanna said with a sort of wry amusement that he had not expected. “Although the Creators may strike me down for allowing such a thing to come to pass.”

“It is fortunate then that they are preoccupied at the moment.” He could feel his lips twist into a tight, polite smile for them.

“Are they? Do you keep their schedule, Solas?” Savh'vuni asked cheekily. He gave her a flat look, which only made her laugh before she turned her attention away from him. “I have brought you back your books, Deshanna. The house is cleared out, please feel free to make use of it while I’m gone.”

“Thank you for saving me the trip, Vuni. Will you still be meeting us in time for Arlath’vhen?” Solas could not stop his heart from hammering a little harder in his chest at the thought of being toted around and forced to endure such an event. Surely he would have escaped or been released by then. The Dalish would not want him present for such a thing, anyway. 

“Yes, I will be bringing the ram skins and the moonwine. Is there anything else you need before I go?” 

“Just your smiling face.” The wrinkled folds of Deshanna’s face lifted into a grin which Savh'vuni returned in kind. 

She came around to her elder and braced her flesh and blood hand at the side of their temple, bringing their foreheads together. She flinched minutely when she drew her hand away. Deshanna didn’t miss it, grabbing Savh'vuni's hand in theirs and examining her palm. The cut that Savh'vuni had inflicted to attach her prosthetic had opened up again. 

They scowled, smacking the side of her arm with surprising force in admonishment. “You foolish girl, your parents gave you this body and this is how you treat it? Not even a bandage…”

A pulse of warm healing magic lit up Deshanna’s hand and they brought it down onto Savh'vuni's, who hissed at the contact. It was almost comical, the way that this woman who Solas had known to sit upon one of the largest seats of power in Thedas was now being tugged around by an aged Keeper; Savh'vuni, who always stood so tall, even taller than her natural height, was bent nearly in half and whining like an ailing child. 

“You will have to do this for her, Wolf, while the two of you are away,” Deshanna said to him, pushing their hand harder against Savh'vuni's palm. “Her mana does not return for some time after using the blood as she does. You will do this.”

Apparently, obstinance was a family trait. How exasperating. “Does Clan Lavellan often make demands of the Dread Wolf, or is this a new trend? I would expect a Keeper, of all people, to know that my help comes at a price.”

“Savh'vuni has already paid in her own blood, and now you will pay in yours.”

Why did that sound so distinctly like a threat?

“I would have already, if she had asked for assistance.” And the truth of that statement hit harder now that it was hanging out in the open air. 

“I was under the impression you knew our dear First better than that. I, for one, have never known her to ask for help, especially when she is most in need of it.”

“I’m right here, in case you’ve forgotten.” Savh'vuni piped in, petulant and embarrassed.

Solas ignored her, zeroing in his attention on Deshanna. “Are you saying she is helpless?”

“No, never. Stubborn? Without a doubt.” 

“Deshanna—” But before Savh'vuni could voice any more complaints that would fall on purposefully deaf ears, her elder took the scarf that they had around their head to keep back their grey hair and wrapped the patterned cloth tight around Savh'vuni's palm. 

“Even the trees know when to bend,” they said, holding Savh'vuni's eyes in their own. 

“I am not a tree,” Savh'vuni responded, the two of them having a conversation that Solas was not privy to.

Deshanna shook their head, conceding. “You are not. You are the sun, _da’vun_ , and the sun only submits to itself.” 

“And I plan to keep it that way.” Her deep black eyes suddenly filled his vision, and he knew that she was no longer speaking in metaphor. She was addressing him, addressing all the times they had lain together, known each other as deeply as two people ever possibly could. How intimately he understood that will of hers that would only continue to try and blind him to his true goals at the end of his current path. She was devious, and she was confident, and Solas had to turn his back to the overwhelming brightness of her. He should do it quickly, before his vision could begin to spot. He looked away, eyes determinedly taking in the shelves against the patched walls. Deshanna kept an extensive collection of clay whistles.

Savh'vuni's shoulders fell minutely, but she quickly righted herself before smiling down at Deshanna. “We should be off then. We’ll be seeing you in two months' time.”

We? _Two_ _months_? When had things become so solidified? She couldn’t possibly be considering taking him to an Arlath’vhen. He knew without a doubt that Fen’Harel was persona non grata at such an event, and she would become a pariah for admitting him. Her confidence would be obnoxious if he didn’t find it so incredibly unsteadying. 

Savh'vuni made her way to the front door, catching his elbow beneath his cloak and pulling him along with her. She opened the door, holding it open for him again, before bidding another farewell to her Keeper, who stood in the doorway to see them off. 

“Fen’Harel,” Deshanna called. “May she guide you.”

He gave an absent nod. What would the sufficient response to such a thing even be? Savh'vuni was already back on the street, and he picked up his pace to catch up to her. There were so many things he wanted to say to her in that moment as they walked side by side amongst the morning bustle of a now fully-awake Wycome. His mind was so preoccupied that he did not even notice when they had come to the drop site that would allow him to give some brief form of instructions to his network before he was spirited away on whatever journey was ahead of him. 

He blinked, clearing the fog that had made its way into his head. “A moment.” 

Savh'vuni nodded, standing what could almost be considered a respectful distance away, and he turned his back to her. Solas opened the drop with a press of mana, finding several bits of correspondence still within its contents. He took one out gingerly, vaguely frustrated by his hands still being bound, and all the implications thereof, and why for the love of all things good in the world couldn’t she have come up with some other way to incapacitate him without diminishing the full use of his limbs? 

He sighed, catching himself. He should not be frustrated over her not crippling him more effectively. He should be frustrated that he was allowing it to come to pass at all. Regardless, Solas succeeded in his task, taking an inconsequential log of activity in the area and folding the two top corners down twice. His informants would know what it meant. _“I have been detained. Wait for further instructions.”_ He put the tampered log back into its spot, fastening the lid and straightening himself out before he turned to face her. He nearly jumped out of his skin to find her mere breaths away, not even hiding how she had been trying to catch a peek. 

“Looks like you’ve got that squared away. I’d very much like to make it to the foothills before nightfall. Are you ready?”

“Lead ever on, Inquisitor.” And her pout resurfaced, an unconscious reaction. Solas idly watched the way that simple turn of her lips managed to bend the contours of her vallaslin so indicatively. 

Still, she did lead on, taking them both on the long winding path out of Wycome and out into the tall, tall trees and cold earth. The soft pack of snow was the only sound between them as Solas realized with an alarming clarity that maybe he was not as in control of the situation as he ought to be, and that maybe, _maybe_ , that had been Savh'vuni's goal from the start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You did it! Well done!
> 
> Elvhen words are all hobbled together from Project Elvhen here on Ao3:
> 
> da'vun - little sun. (Savh'vuni means something along the lines of "Warm, welcomed sun"...so there's that.)  
> Pae: Dad  
> On dhea: Good Morning  
> Mamae: Mother
> 
> I plan to update this fic every other week until I have all the chapters drafted (I am about 70% there atm). After that I will switch to weekly updates. 
> 
> Thank you everyone for all of your encouragement and interest so far! We've got a big storm coming, and I'm glad I won't be going through it alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the official TToF'H Spotify playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/461MyjSK8R7khkRP4xuT9h)

* * *

* * *

They did make it to the foothills by nightfall. Earlier than that, actually. Savh'vuni had a certain spring in her step at the accomplishment despite walking the majority of the day. Solas envied her energy; he had always envied it. No one should be so incredibly peppy while slogging through death-filled swamps like she had in the Fallow Mire, but if such a thing had not fazed her then, he doubted a bit of wet sogginess from the slush of melting snow could do much damage now.

“Should we find a place to make camp? It’s nearly dusk.” Her question was innocuous, asked between them numerous times before. The lull he had felt in the quick steps of her cadence beside his own was suddenly swallowed up by the way he had fallen back into the familiar dynamic that had always been between them. Easy words and jibes that always erred on flirtatious and then comfortable quiet. He panicked.

“Soon, perhaps,” he said, taking several pointed steps away from Savh'vuni. Not enough to be suspicious, but enough to breathe. 

In all honesty, he wanted nothing more than to lie down right there in the slush and cold and go into a sleep so deep even the Fade could not touch him. Every inch of him ached and he did not understand exactly why. Perhaps the gravity of this Veiled world was finally catching up to him, maybe he was simply too old. Maybe it was an aftereffect of Savh'vuni dragging him physically through a space with no physicality. Solas did not know and he found that all the more irritating—exhausting. 

“We should try to find a cave…” Savh'vuni trailed off, looking into the dense trees around them, still caked in snow from the night before.

The sun had fully set before they came to the mouth of a live cave that would prove suitable enough for their purpose. Fresh water and dry ground were the only necessities, but it being surprisingly giant-spider-free was an amenity neither of them could pass up. 

Savh'vuni brought a ball of fire to her left hand, the light of it glimmering off of her prosthetic and casting a mix of yellow and blue light around them. She went farther in, glancing around and inspecting different areas as if mentally compiling a list of faults and benefits of each piece of slate or crack of stone. Finally content, she threw down the pile of kindling she had collected while they searched for shelter—hastily tucking each scrap of dry wood between her right arm and side—before promptly tossing her fireball into it. Maybe not the most elegant campfire, but efficient all the same. 

Without any further preamble, Savh'vuni dumped one loaded pack after another, groaning as she straightened up and stretched—finally free of the weight of it all. Her back popped in several places, and Solas’ fingers twitched at the sound. 

“Creators, it’s freezing,” she complained. She kneeled down to her main pack, opening it and removing item after item. Savh’vuni set them down around her in neat piles until she finally reached a coat, which she pulled on and wound around herself. She stood, hopping from foot to foot in an effort to warm herself. She rubbed furiously at her arms through the sleeves. Solas stopped his attempt to unclasp the pack Savh'vuni had entrusted to him, looking at her more fully. He had never known Savh'vuni to get cold. No, quite the opposite. She always ran obscenely hot, as if the fire she always preferred ran rampant beneath her skin. 

She looked over at him where he stood lamely across from her, watching, and gestured for him to come over with a tilt of her head. He did, and she met him beside the fire, warm and flickering at their damp pants and boots. Her hands slipped beneath his cloak and went straight for the clasp with her mismatched fingers, loosening it completely so it could fall away from him. She grabbed the straps, walked over to her packs, and started the short, practiced work of making camp for the night. 

Solas felt useless in a way that he was not accustomed to. Not simply because his hands were still bound and would be in such a state for the unforeseeable future while he allowed Savh'vuni to satiate whatever stubborn warpath she was on now, but, perhaps, because he was caught wrong-footed by having her around him like this. 

In the secret, unknown places of his heart he allowed the barest, briefest hope to live. Places that continued to grow with each step he took farther away from Savh’vuni over the past six years, once he had taken the anchor back into his own possession; back when he had watched her beg and weep at his feet, but could not reconcile this new image of a woman he always knew to gleam like the first rays of the morning sun—bright heat, and life, and energy immeasurable. Here she was again, reaching in deep, trying to pull it all free. He could not allow it. 

“I could be of much more help to you if you would permit me access to my full range of motion,” he threw his voice back to her, twisting his wrists around in their restraints.

“Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll have us situated in no time.”

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, but at least he’d tried. He gave a sigh, slightly less muted than it could have been—the only way he could express his aggravation at the situation to Savh'vuni without any unnecessarily pointed words. He cast his eyes around the dim cave, slowly growing colder despite Savh'vuni's shoddy fire’s best efforts. It would not do for him to finally pass because he froze to death in some quaint cave north of nowhere. He pulled against the Veil, summoning a dozen self-contained fireballs and scattering them around the space; they bobbed and floated, coating the stone with warm wavering light. There, he could be useful, even with the meager magic at his disposal. 

Savh'vuni gave a shocked blip of laughter, her almond-shaped eyes going wide as she looked around them. She cleared her throat. 

“Thanks,” she said. 

“It is no trouble.” Solas found a spot a small ways away, sitting and swiftly folding his legs in front of him. He leaned back against the cold damp wall of the cave and let his eyes fall closed. His shoulders relaxed for a moment, lulled by the quiet sounds of Savh'vuni rolling out their bedrolls and night things. 

Savh'vuni began to hum quietly to herself as she went about her tasks, and Solas couldn’t stop the sound from filling him from head to toe. Her low notes flowed together and echoed like a harmony off the sloping walls. So familiar. Too familiar. Solas feared that if he took a chance to look at her he would find their other companions around the campfire, too; Blackwall whittling away at some scrap of wood or Sera spinning an arrow between her fingers as she poked and teased Savh'vuni with the sharp end of it while the Inquisitor sang a homespun tune. Apparitions of guilt and longing that he could not bear. He swallowed the tight feeling in his throat down.

At some point he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew Savh'vuni was crouched in front of him, shaking his shoulder lightly. Her lips turned sweetly at the corners and her gaze was so unfairly soft that he thought he must be in the Fade. 

“You must be tired, come on.” And there was no teasing like he would usually expect from her. No jabs about him being an old man, or forever tempted by the lure of the Dreaming, or some other such quip she would usually think of within that moment. 

How had he dropped his guard so easily? And why was he expecting those old beats from her that they had shared what may as well be a lifetime ago? Everything was different now. 

Their camp was set up, and the simple lined bedrolls looked like the finest Orleasian mattress with how his body ached for sleep. How considerate of her to pack a set for him as well. She could have easily made him sleep on the hard ground, or out in the cold, or in the same roll as hers. He wasn’t quite sure which would qualify as the worst punishment of the three. 

“Take your pick. I’m going to fill our water skins,” Savh’vuni said, gesturing to the ground. 

He could escape now. Certainly, he was still bound, and it was getting increasingly colder as night came around fully, but he could. She was getting too comfortable, and he should capitalize on the opportunity it created. Maybe he could incapacitate her in some way that would only leave her inconvenienced rather than injured. Nothing immediately came to mind besides a vision of Savh'vuni lying dead on the ground while he fled, and that thought alone was what caused his legs to bring him to the closest cot. He sat himself squarely down on it before the sinking feeling in his gut could solidify into any discernible action. 

He slipped his cloak over his head, doing his best to lay it out flat in front of the fire to dry. Then he shimmied out of his pants and gave them the same treatment. He cursed to himself as the sharp cold started to creep up his bare legs. He slipped into his bedroll and sent a wave of heat through his body. 

Void take him, he was tired. 

Savh'vuni returned not long after, shaking out her hand. A few stray drops spat against the fire as she placed the skins by their packs. She gave a shallow smile down at him where he was tucked in up to the nose. He could see her biting back the urge to say something; the way her cheek worked against her jaw was telling. 

She stayed quiet, turning her back to him and removing her coat, shoes, and pants. They were all lined up neatly by the fire before she too retired to her bedroll. She sat up, unwinding the handkerchief Deshanna had wrapped around her hand and laying it out on her lap. She took her hair in hand, and Solas watched as she braided the black curtain of it before tying it off with the cloth in a tight knot. She looked down at it, admiring the color and pattern before closing her eyes and letting out a breath. She finally put her head to the ground and tucked herself in.

They lay across from each other. Savh'vuni turned away, and Solas tried not to fixate on the way her hair draped over her shoulder to expose the slope of her neck to the cold air as well as his gaze. She shifted, rolling onto her other side to face him, and he saw instantly that she was equally as tired as he was, more so even. Her eyes drooped and her face was lax, but she would not look away from how she beheld him: unwavering, almost unnerving, penetrative and pensive. 

She gave a comically loud yawn, and Solas felt his lips lifting at the corners. He was thankful for his smile being hidden away from her view. 

“You are half in the Fade already. You can barely keep your eyes open,” he said. Savh'vuni nodded, her chin slipping deeper into her roll as she rubbed at her eye. 

“Yes, but I’m afraid.” And her voice was quiet enough that the low crackling of the fire nearly swallowed it up. A confession, a sharing of weakness. Solas felt his heart twist, and he clenched his jaw to keep himself steady. 

“Do you fear I will bring harm to you as you sleep?” 

“No, never.” She curled up into a ball in her bedroll. “I’m scared you’ll be gone when I wake up.”

He should be. He should do exactly that. It would be the best opportunity. They were not far from the nearest eluvian; he could make it back to his network and be rid of this weird tangent his path had suddenly taken. 

But she was scared and she was tired. Suddenly, she didn’t look like the mighty Inquisitor, vanquisher of corrupted Darkspawn Magisters and mender of the heavens themselves. No. She looked like a woman, like a desperate woman shivering in a cave and hoping that he would still be there when she awoke. 

For a fleeting second he wanted to be that person who could be there for her. Who could comfort her with a hand upon her own and placating words that would lull her into a deep, restful slumber. He had been that person for a time. However small that part of him may have been, it had still been _him_ at the end of it. Did it still exist somewhere inside of him, suffocating underneath all the other layers that were covering it?

“Sleep,” he said, turning his back to her and shifting his hips until he was more comfortable. 

“Goodnight, Solas.” 

He flinched, he knew he did, and worse, he knew she had seen it. His voice caught before he could return the sentiment, and he shut his eyes tighter. Her quiet kindness was a violence he could not endure. He would wait until she was deeper asleep. He would wait until the fire died. He would wait until he could count her breaths in the still, icy air, and then he would leave. He would.

* * *

Solas stirred, eyes bleary as the first morning rays breached the depths of the cave. The smell of meat and fat filled his nose. A curse sat at the tip of his tongue. 

He had fallen asleep. He had dropped off so deeply that he could not remember if he had even reached any of his agents to relay orders to circumvent his latest predicament. Certainly, he must have. He could not be so irresponsible as to simply sleep. Perhaps Savh'vuni had tampered with more than his physical placement when she had brought him across time and space and ether. Worse, maybe she had affected his connection to the Fade on accident. 

“Well, what am I supposed to say, Dorian? He’s here. He’s still here. It’s working.” Savh'vuni said into the crystal held in her hand, voice in a low whisper, but still loud enough that it carried through the cave to him. She quickly looked over her shoulder as if to confirm her words, and Solas closed his eyes to feign continued sleep. 

_“Yes, but for how long? And why? It’s all highly suspicious, and you are alone with a man that could, need I remind you, turn you into stone with a thought if it so pleased him.”_ And Solas could not agree more with Dorian. He was absolutely right, and Solas should be doing better. 

Savh'vuni stirred the pot hanging over the fire—fed and raging stronger now than it had the night before. “Dorian, my sweet mustachioed worrywart, you _do_ care. Besides, Dagna and I took care of it. One day at a time, right? We agreed to this.” 

A long-suffering sigh crackled through the crystal. 

_“Are we still expecting you, then?”_ he asked.

“Yes, weather permitting. It’s snowing buckets again.” Solas glanced to the mouth of the cave to confirm the Inquisitor’s words. Indeed, it was, and wasn’t that just the most spectacular development? 

_“Do not do anything foolish. Or, rather, more foolish. I would very much like to see you with all remaining parts intact.”_

“No promises.” Solas shifted, trying to stretch his aching neck, and Savh'vuni caught the movement. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch.” 

_“Do say hello to my favorite hobo, won’t you.”_

“Only if you give my love to Bull. Bye.”

Dorian’s farewell was cut off by Savh'vuni clasping the crystal shut in the metal clutch that held it.

“Breakfast?” she asked, like he wasn't a prisoner in her company. 

“Should I expect poison?” Solas quipped, rising to sitting.

“If you consider a bit of char poisonous, yes.” 

Ah, she had not improved on her complete lack of culinary skills in their time apart, then. His stomach rumbled regardless. In all of Savh'vuni's haste yesterday, they had not had more than a bit of leathered fruit between the two of them. 

Savh'vuni plated the food before she placed a shallow bowl before him; inside were two blackened pieces of what surely must have been meat, which sat over the saddest pile of wrinkled tubers he had ever seen. Solas bit down on any disparaging comments. It would be unwise to provoke the person in charge of his potential caloric intake. She could easily turn it into ashes to spite him. Although she was just as likely to do that on accident, now that he thought about it. Perhaps it would improve the flavor.

“A bit of char,” he said, lightly incredulous. “And which bit would that be?” 

Savh'vuni smiled, all teeth. “Eat.” 

She was already digging into her own serving, swallowing quickly enough that it looked like she had not even tasted what hit her tongue, which was probably for the best. The upside of his ravenous state was that he did eat. Outside of the burnt edges scraping against the inside of his throat, it filled him sufficiently enough. 

After a stilted silence, when there was no longer the scrape of utensils against the inside of empty bowls, Savh'vuni got up and gathered everything. She took it all away for a quick cleaning in the shallow river running through the cave. Solas took the opportunity of a mediocrum of privacy to dress himself again, finding his pants and cloak dried and folded neatly by his bedroll. They had been warmed. A touching gesture. A small sign of caring from Savh’vuni. It was nothing, really, and it should not touch him as it did.

Savh'vuni returned as he fumbled with the laces of his trousers. She arched an eyebrow. 

“Need any help?” she asked. 

“Not at present.” He didn’t dare look at her, focusing entirely on his fingers. He managed it on the next pass and immediately went about tugging on his boots, willfully oblivious to the way she eyed the curve of his backside as he did so. Let her look. It could do no further harm than the present set of circumstances. 

He straightened, tapping out the toe of his left boot to inch his foot in deeper. Savh'vuni was already breaking down camp. 

“I am still here,” he said. An aimless comment. The words had come forth of their own volition, and he watched as she tensed. She stopped for the smallest fraction of a second before carrying on. “Might I have some better understanding as to what, exactly, it is that you are hoping to accomplish by making it so?”

“I already told you. We’re taking a trip.”

“Yes, but for what purpose?”

“Is the pleasure of my company and the promise of exploration not enough?”

The urge to shake some sense into her was near overwhelming. “No, Savh'vuni. I am in no position to be playing adventurers with you. Now either tell me what it is that you are planning, or you will force my hand.”

She swallowed thickly. He watched the way her throat bobbed, as if her mouth had gone dry, and he wet his own lips in sympathy. She wiped some dust from her hands, brushing them off on her pants as she stood and faced him.

“I want you to see it.” Her black eyes held him steadfastly, and he was tempted to fall into their unending depths. “I want you to see all of it. The entire extent of what you are sacrificing. And I want to watch you do it.”

His stomach sat somewhere below his knees and his heart was lower still. Maybe it had stopped existing entirely for all he knew within that moment. “To what end?”

“That I will know whether or not any of it mattered,” Savh'vuni sighed. She tore her eyes away from him and continued her repacking. 

Solas could hear the words she had so cleverly obfuscated. What she actually meant was whether or not _she_ mattered. Surely, she knew the answer to that, which meant that she must also know that the truth could not change simply because she willed it to. This was not something her stubbornness could wear down like waves lapping at a cliff. 

The silence stretched on uncomfortably. Savh'vuni secured the opening of her pack shut, pulling the strap too tightly, before she gave a huff. 

“Two months. Give me two months. It’s nothing to you, it is no time at all. Please. If I haven’t changed your mind by the end of it, I’ll concede. Fully. The Inquisition will no longer pursue your forces. You have my word.” 

Solas tilted his head, considering her offer. At best he would have one less battlefront to worry about, and all he would have sacrificed to gain that victory would have been some of his time. At worst, he would still leave her—both of them undoubtedly deeper in a heartache that had not even started to mend—and their battle would only grow fiercer in its desperation. He ran his hands over his scalp.

“If our time together in the Inquisition did not already solidify my opinion of this world, what makes you think you will be successful now?” he asked, rolling up his own bedroll with a kick of his foot. He picked it up and brought it over to her. She took it from him.

“You have it all wrong. I’m not going to be sitting on my altar, preaching about the validity of all that is. Think of it as…” She wavered, looking up at the cavernous ceiling. “Think of this as canvassing for your future world. Success would be a welcome outcome, obviously, but I wouldn’t turn my nose up at finding you a suitable summer home to live out the rest of your infinitely miserable life.”

“How considerate,” he said, standing ramrod straight as she secured his pack to him again. The cloak followed right after, and she fiddled with the collar at his neck until it sat securely around his throat and ears. 

“You know me, always thinking of others.” 

She did. It was one of her greatest weaknesses. Maybe that was the reason he had not forgotten such a vital thing about her as he had so many other minute details that had fascinated him in the years before. Savh’vuni hefted her own packs back into place, this time with her jacket snugly fastened around her and gloves pulled over her mismatched hands. She pulled another set out of her back pocket and brought them to him, helping him pull his fingers into each fur-lined slot.

“Besides,” she said, “if this doesn’t work out, well, at least I got to see everything I wanted to before the end. A farewell tour, if you will. And I couldn’t ask for a better companion at my side to do it.” She patted the top of his right hand, smiling wide enough that he could catch the gap in her teeth.

The thought was not as comforting as she had probably meant for it to be. It sat like a rock in his gut. 

He tried to push her away over the years with mixed success. He shoved her into a corner in his heart and built up every wall imaginable within himself to keep her there. But she took those walls and used them as a solid surface to push him against instead of complying. His plan to contain her had failed, and she shoved him back into a reality where he was forced to see his own fallibility. But if _he_ was fallible, then there was some logic in thinking that all of his world-altering plans might mirror the same faults as himself. 

That was her plan now. Savh’vuni was planning to force him into facing an uncomfortable truth that she believed to exist once more. Solas could not afford to allow her to continue, even as he felt the wall at his back. If there actually was some error to his goals or his motivations, then what else should he have done with all the time he had fed into keeping her away? It would have been for nothing.

“If I agree to your request, might we negotiate some of the terms around it?” he asked.

That caught her interest. “Such as?”

“You will give me a more definitive understanding of where we are heading. I may be able to spend my own personal time with you, but I cannot allow my network to sit idly by. There are time-sensitive matters that must be addressed and progressed.”

“I can agree to that,” she said with a nod. “Anything else?”

“You will remove these.” He brought his wrists up for her to see.

She laughed. “And what can you give me in return to guarantee that you won’t manifest into your most beastly side and crush me in your jaws like an after-dinner mint?”

“For one thing, we only just had breakfast.” Solas ignored the way her sharp laughter sounded so much like her father’s now that he knew what to listen for. “For another, you cannot expect me to be of any use to you bound and hobbled.”

“Counteroffer,” she said with a shake of her head. “I will remove the snares when I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that you fully intend to stay.”

“Does my word alone count for nothing?”

“With your record?”

He could not fault her for her impression of him. “A fair point. I rescind the question.”

“This is your last chance to bargain, Solas.” It was a warning, but at least they were coming to an understanding. “Is there anything else?”

He thought on it, shaking his head before he spoke. “There is one final request, if you would permit me.”

“Which is?” she asked, quirking a thick eyebrow.

“You will let me do the cooking.”

She smiled, amused, as she looked him squarely in the eyes. He scanned all the imperfect details of her face—trying his utmost to memorize them because, apparently, he had not done a sufficient enough job of it when he had tried before he left her. He had to do it now, before he could think better of it. 

“You have a deal.”

* * *

They left the cave when the snow stopped. He ran a bit of fire magic through his body to counter the biting chill, and he sensed Savh’vuni doing the same. Her connection to the Fade must be fully restored if the dexterity with which she pulled her magic to her was any indication. They traveled in companionable silence, the crunch of snow and the bracing icy wind the only sounds between them. 

“Well,” Savh’vuni said after a time, her voice unnaturally loud after the quiet. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Hm?” he hummed back in question. “In regards to what?”

“About where we’re going? You made it seem like it was some end-all-be-all to our deal, and yet you haven’t asked.” She shrugged. “It’s probably for the best. I doubt you’d like my answer very much anyways.”

Ah, yes. He had gotten lost in the feeling of being out in nature again—the difference between the swift use of his own legs to push him through it rather than the thrumming beat of magic fueling his steps through the Crossroads more often than not in his day-to-day. Solas cleared his throat. 

“Forgive me, it has been some time since I have had the opportunity to simply walk. It is…” He should swallow his words, or his tongue at the very least. Maybe then he wouldn’t sound like such a fool. “It is refreshing.”

“I imagine it must be. What with all of your layers and layers of subterfuge running at all times, in all places. See, I was right. You _do_ need a vacation.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. 

They walked on, falling back into silence. He looked up to watch as the trees passed overhead. The snowy blankets covering them glittered in the sunlight that had finally made its way through the morning clouds. Savh’vuni had outpaced him by several legs, and he idly took in the long shape of her: weighed down with all of her packs, her coat, and her long black hair. She had to be letting it grow out, and he could not help but want to run his hands through the thickness of it. His fingers twitched where they were bound together. His gaze fell to the swift sway of her hips, the lithe length of her thighs as they worked harder to push her through the snow when she waded through deeper patches. The faint scent of burning wood drifted through the air. 

They broke into a clearing and found the remains of a camp that had been abandoned. A smoldering fire sat at its center. 

“Someone left in a hurry,” Savh’vuni remarked. She walked around an upturned cart, eyes scanning for anything useful that might have been left behind. ‘ _Waste not, want not,’_ she had said when she did the same thing back with the Inquisition, gleefully picking clean abandoned homes and wayward corpses alike.

There were scattered tracks. Something that indicated a scuffle before a trail of what could only be blood led out toward the treeline. Solas and Savh’vuni exchanged a look. 

“Bandits?” she suggested, kneeling down to get a better look. 

He shrugged. “Or a domestic disagreement.”

“What makes you say that?”

“There are two sets of dishes by the fire, and yet there is only one bedroll,” Solas explained. “The conclusion seemed an obvious one.”

She laughed. “Highly unlikely. Who’s honeymooning out in these woods?”

Solas gave himself a mental pat on the back for not rising to the bait. All joking aside, it was a dangerous analogy. 

Savh’vuni took one last look around. “Whoever they are, they’re long gone.” She stood, pulling her pack more fully onto her shoulder. “The blood’s frozen.” 

“Let us remain vigilant, regardless.”

“Aw, where’s the fun in that?” she teased, sticking out her tongue. The sight of it sent him back to a time where she had made that same face at him and he told her how he would take her tongue with his teeth the next time it left her lips—his tone lowered and carrying only for her ears to hear. There was no way he had slipped far enough to reiterate the same sentiment now, no matter how it bubbled up within him.

“Somewhere between not dying in the woods and living long enough to get out of the cold, I would imagine,” he said, looking everywhere and anywhere but at her and that slip of pink that had vanished back into her mouth.

“If you say so. Come on, I think I can hear the Manater.”

He followed her back into the forest, thankful that they were headed in the opposite direction of the blood trail; Savh’vuni was known to jest, but even in all their time together there were some instances where he could not be too certain. 

True to Savh’vuni’s senses, they did come across the main vein of the Manater River, swift beneath the thin layer of ice that had tried its best to quell it. 

“Hm,” Savh’vuni hummed. “That’s probably not thick enough to bear weight.” She looked up and down the stream. “Dammit, I didn’t think it would thaw this early.” She ran her metal hand over the barely frozen water, breathing in and sending magic out in a concentrated rush. She thickened the ice beneath her hand, compacting it until it knit together like a bridge across to the other side.

“You have been practicing, I see,” he commented as she placed her first tentative step onto the makeshift walk plank. Solas distinctly remembered her automatic resistance to the element less than a decade ago; how she shied away from any and all attempts made by her inner circle of mages to help her in that regard. She liked fire, fire liked her. She was happy enough with that at the time. It seemed some things had changed in their time apart.

“I made the discovery that fire isn’t as malleable as I’d like it to be after one too many sleepless nights. Idle hands and all that.” She had made it halfway over the river before he started to follow her. 

“Is this your roundabout way of blaming me for your own improvement?” He stepped carefully forward, securing each stride so as not to slip. His balance was already compromised with his hands tied as they were. It would be difficult to catch himself in the event of a fall.

“It did sound rather accusatory, didn’t it?”

“Only marginally.” One step after another. His eyes did not leave his feet or the patch of ice before them.

“I’ll try to be more direct in my accusations from now on,” she said, as if she were relieving him of some great worry.

“No need to stress yourself, Inquisitor.”

She sighed, hopping down onto the snow-covered bank. She turned around to wait for him. “I want to add another amendment to our agreement.” 

“I am listening.” He dared not spare her more than his ears.

“You can’t call me that anymore. I don’t address you as Fen’Harel, and I’d appreciate the same courtesy.”

Solas blanched. That had been unkind of him, but he had not seen or thought of it that way. “Apologies, I meant no harm. It is habit, I suppose. I will endeavor to break it.”

And it was a habit, or rather, more like a trick he could play on himself. He had used it as a guard when he had shut himself off from her in Crestwood. It was easier to keep himself in check if there wasn’t her name falling from his mouth—carrying the bitter taste of her disappointment on his tongue. 

They both made it safely across the river. Savh’vuni glowed at her accomplishment. They walked through more wood, following tiny offshoots of the river. They clambered over twisted roots and sludgy patches of snow. 

“You do not carry a staff any longer?” Solas asked after a long stretch of silence. He had to use both of his palms to brace against the trunk of a tree as he pulled himself over another gargantuan root. 

“I don’t really have much use for it now, considering.” She had gotten so much further ahead of him that she had to throw her voice back for him to hear, which only managed to fuel his frustration. They had barely traveled for half the day. There was no conceivable way he could be tiring at such a rate.

“Do you not worry about any recurser energies?” he asked, searching for any means of distraction from the way his chest expanded with each deeper breath and how his thighs burned at each incline and embankment.

“Not really. What’s the worst that could happen? I blow my fake arm off? I’ve done it already with flesh and blood, I’d like to think I’m equipped to handle it. Besides, is there anything more obvious than a large staff strapped to my back to scream to the world about my own apostasy?”

“That is true enough. Although, it also leaves you without a weapon at your disposal.”

She clicked her tongue. “Solas,” Savh’vuni chided, “you know I never had any great skill with my staff-work. I also know that _you_ know that I’ve been training with knives since I could walk, and that did not change with the removal of a staff from my hands. Funnily enough, it made the knives more accessible”

He took note of the bud of a hilt sitting on the inside of her left boot for the first time and then another tucked into the back of her pants at the waistline. Careless. He was slipping. 

“What about you?” Savh’vuni asked. “I seem to recall you leaving with one of the best staves the Inquisition had in our armory and never returning it. Does it no longer meet your standards?” 

He could feel heat hit high on his cheeks. Luckily, the cold wind had already chapped them red enough to hide it. “I suppose I am in much of the same position as yourself.” 

“Because it is useless to you now?”

“No. It is because it would be of _no_ use to me now.”

“I see,” she said, quietly as she digested this bit of information he had given her; weighing it against what that could mean for the scale of what his magic had become while they were apart. She had not come to a favorable conclusion if the way her lower lip turned out was anything to go by. He scanned what could be seen of the sky overhead, marking how the sun had begun to fall towards the west. 

“Are you hungry?” she asked, changing the subject. He gave a slight incline of his head.

“That is dependent on whether or not you intend to be the one to feed us.”

“I have every intention to stick to our deal, Solas. Y’know, I also like eating food that is mostly edible.”

“Mostly?” He laughed, genuinely and unexpectedly. “I was not aware that any of my cooking had ever fallen short of being wholly ingestible.” 

“You’ll have to refresh my memory, then.” 

They both sought out a patch of level ground to settle into for the evening, melting down the remaining snow around the area they finally picked with a brush of fire; Solas held the magic suspended until it dried the ground completely, a feat which the snares seemed to have no issue with. Savh’vuni set up their bed rolls within the tent, laying down a thick fur to mitigate the inevitable chill that would set in during the night. She quickly went about setting up several animal traps just beyond where they had made camp, collecting a sizable pile of firewood on her way back. Solas did what little he could with his hands bound and waiting.

They continued in peaceful cohabitation until the telltale snap of one of the traps rang through the trees. Solas instantly looked up to Savh’vuni, unconsciously anticipating the look that he knew would be playing across her features: triumph, excitement, and deep-seated gratification. She gave him a smile, seeing that he had heard it too, and then took off. His heart was hammering in his chest. She had left him there and she trusted him to still be there when she got back. He should not. Agreements aside, he did not have to comply. She had said so herself, his word was hardly worth anything. Another falsehood would only depreciate it minimally. A second trap sounded off a bit farther out than the first. Savh’vuni must have given chase to more dinner. 

He stayed put despite his better instincts. Savh’vuni returned after a while, holding up two fat rabbits that she had already skinned—the furs held in her flesh and blood hand, perfectly stripped away from the meat and bone. 

“Hope you’re hungry,” she said, a definitive spring in her step. “I figure we can sell their snowy white furs in town tomorrow. Maybe make enough for a decent lunch.” She seemed pleased at the prospect. 

“Town?” he asked, taking the rabbits from her as she went about setting up the campfire for cooking and he did what he could to prepare their meal. She handed off a short blade from within her sleeve and he took it with a nod of thanks. 

“Yes, Ansburg.” 

“Will we be staying long?” His brain was already forming a plan.

“I hope not. We’ve got a strict itinerary to keep.”

He had an agent he could make contact with in Ansburg. One of his Commanders which had recently been stationed there to keep word flowing from his network in Antiva into the Free Marches. He would seek them out tonight in the Fade.

Solas went about making their meal. Savh’vuni helped in the only way she could by watching and handing off spices to him from the small pouch she had found nestled away in one of their packs. The full extent of her preparedness was impressive. Wools and furs for the cold, sheer linens for the heat. A coin purse hidden beneath it all and now two rabbit furs to stuff it further apparently. There was a lot of information to be garnered simply from how and what she had decided were necessities on this journey. The one detail he could tell for certain was that she intended for them to journey far; to somewhere where the cold of winter could not touch them. 

The rabbit added the perfect richness to the stew; a nice layer of yellow, fatty oil accumulating around the edge of the simmering liquid. Savh’vuni doled a heaping portion into both of their bowls, her mouth a bit slack-jawed as she took a deep breath in. 

“Something tells me I’m getting the better end of this deal,” she said. A compliment. Solas blinked down at his bowl. 

“I must agree with you on that front.”

She ignored him, already slurping away and humming appreciatively. There was something about the way Savh’vuni ate. Something honest in how she reacted that allowed one to know exactly how she felt about the food itself or, perhaps, the provider of such a meal. He remembered when they stayed overnight at a chateau before the Winter Palace how she had scowled down at her dessert plate, filled to the brim with little cakes and burnt sugar filigree, like it had insulted her in some tangible way. He remembered how she had shoved her plate away, not so direct as to place it right beneath his nose, but within his reach for when he had finished scraping his own plate clean of every last crumb. A lifetime ago for all that it mattered. 

He ate with as much finesse as he could manage, wiping any trailing bits of broth away from the corners of his mouth on the back of his hand as Savh’vuni helped herself to another portion. 

“Creators, bringing you along was a great idea. This meal alone has already been well worth the trouble.”

“Trouble?” Solas asked, affronted. “I assure you that if I had a choice in the matter, I would not have been any.”

She pointed her spoon at him with a jab. “Maybe not to my face, but I’ve had it up to here—,” she brought the utensil well above her head— ”with all your schemes and calculations from a distance. You know how I hate the Game.”

“I do.” All the more reason he should continue to play it. 

Savh’vuni brought the rim of her bowl to her lips, swallowing down the dregs, before giving a contented sigh. Solas hid his smile in another spoonful. 

Night came swiftly. The little light that still drifted through the tree cover fully diminished into the soft, orange glow of their fire. Savh’vuni yawned, stretching her arms overhead and hiding her face in her shoulder.

“I think I’m going to bed. You should do the same when you’re ready.”

“Are you not afraid I will run?” Why was he asking her this? To ask was to admit that he had been considering it himself. 

“I am,” she admitted, stopping just outside of the tent. “I thought you might want some space, since we’ll be sharing a tent tonight.”

Oh. That was thoughtful of her. She had overwhelmed him so consistently since he was put back within her orbit that he had not had a moment to really breathe. She must have realized that he might need some semblance of space to process without him even thinking of his own well-being. 

“Yes,” he said, his voice lost somewhere in his throat. He cleared it. “Yes, you have my thanks. I will be but a moment.”

“Good night, Solas.” She gave him a brief, reassuring smile. Patient, which was a quality not often paired to Savh’vuni. Kind, yes, always, but patience was often far removed from her. 

“Good night.” The sound of the tent flap closing followed his words, and he looked up at the sparse trail of stars he could make out high above the black trees. The night was as dark as her eyes. 

He let out a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. He should follow her and get some sleep himself. He had his agents to seek out and bring up to speed. He had responsibilities. He had duties to fulfill. He had already lost two full days to Savh’vuni’s willfulness. Who knew how many more he would be losing in the months to come. There was work to be done.

Solas stared at the fire, watching as it burned down lower and lower, before he headed into the tent himself. Savh’vuni was well and deep in the Fade, her slow breaths bouncing off the sloping hide walls. She had already rolled out his bedroll a good distance from hers, and he appreciated the offered space, no matter how minimal; he appreciated how she respected the small boundary he had built between them. She did not have to be so understanding. Solas liked to think that if he were in Savh’vuni’s position in their present dynamic that he would have extended her the same degree of respect. 

He toed off his boots after loosening the laces, placing them neatly in the corner available to him. His bedroll was warm. His eyes drooped and he fell fast asleep—tucked on his side, his chin buried in the top cover of his bedroll, and the sight of Savh’vuni’s slack, sleeping face his last known comfort before he entered the Fade himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I just wanted to pop in to say a great big "thank you!" to everyone who has commented and expressed interest in this story so far! You are all the best, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well :))


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the official TToF'H Spotify playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/461MyjSK8R7khkRP4xuT9h)

* * *

* * *

The Fade thrummed with the wild pulse of the forest he and Savh’vuni had made camp in. Solas righted himself, standing tall and comfortable in a domain that had always felt like home, or at least more like a home than any he had rightly known. It was his only consistency, a place to ground himself and take deep centering breaths until the world evened out. 

After a few quiet moments stolen solely for himself, he let all the softer parts of his identity fall away with a final exhale. He walled himself up inside, stuffed the tiny things that made him vulnerable down and away, and slipped into that baser part that would always be Fen’Harel. A hardness, a sharpness—lethal and ruthless. At times it could be jarring to inhabit such a headspace that was so greatly dissimilar to his truest self. Tonight he found the task particularly difficult, and he only had Savh’vuni to blame: her and her softness—her kindness and her teasing proximity. The knowledge that in reality she was sleeping across from him sent a thrill through his mind that threatened to shift the Fade. He pushed it down deeper. 

Solas had to make contact with his agent in Ansburg. It was a simple enough task. He shifted the Fade with a purposeful deliberation as he sought her out. Laurea’s dreams were distressed enough to act like a guide. He anchored himself to their frequency, and within a fraction of a thought he arrived in her dream. A dark, abysmal place. Shapeless and without definition, but filled to the brim with fear. Laurea stood in a corner, rusted shackles around her ankles, wrists, and neck. The sound of a whip cracked followed by a scream in the distance. He saw her thick hands clench before releasing, then clench again. He had seen this dream before, he knew where it led, and he did not care to further invade her memories. 

He took hold of her dream and stripped it of its fear and desolation. The Fade mellowed at his coaxing, and the area lightened into a vague middle space, soft and comforting. He stepped closer to the large, tanned woman, who was already pulling at her bindings, her movements frantic as they dissolved beneath her touch. 

“Laurea,” he greeted. She looked towards him with wide brown eyes before she straightened. 

“ _Kaffas_ ,” she said with a deep sigh. “You’ve got perfect timing.”

“I am glad I could be of some assistance.” He tugged again at their surroundings, pulling them into a representation of one of his smaller fortresses. Stark wooden paneling against stone. He willed his desk before him, the correspondence that he had left on top. If he reached hard enough, he could will their contents into manifesting along with them.

Laurea absently rubbed at her wrists as she approached him, still holding onto some of the chaffing from her original dream. Solas waved it away. 

“I heard you had been detained in Wycome. My question is, what in the world are you doing way out in the Free Marches? Last I had been debriefed, you were neck-deep in Orlais.” Laurea was clever enough that Solas knew she must be putting some picture of the situation together herself.

“Yes. There are—” he grasped for the best way to approach this, leafing through the wordless papers in search of time—“extraneous circumstances at play. Are you still in Ansburg?”

“‘Til the end of the week, or you say otherwise. There should be a dispatch coming through before I head back to Antiva,” she said with an absent nod. 

“I need you to put together a report on all Inquisition movements in the past forty-eight hours and leave it at the closest drop.”

She rubbed at the back of her neck, her other hand fisted at her hip, which expanded her overall broadness. The muscles in her arms flexed with the movement. “Alright, how soon do you need it?”

“By the end of tomorrow, sooner if at all possible. I will also need you to have the information memorized if I fail to make it there physically.”

“Should I be expecting recurring visits, your Dreadedness?” Ah. There was the reverence he inspired in his ranks. He quelled the urge to roll his eyes.

“Possibly,” he nodded, ignoring her jab. After the fifth time, the effectiveness started to wear off. 

“What exactly are you up to, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I have managed to exploit a weakness in the Inquisition forces.” The spinning of truth came without a thought, which was well enough. If he did think too strongly about it, he would realize that him taking advantage of Savh’vuni being the biggest weakness in the Inquisition could easily be flipped around to show how he was the biggest weakness in his own forces. That was an unfortunate conclusion. He was the only one sleeping with his hands still bound and captive, after all. 

He sighed. “Unfortunately, I am required to attend to it myself. Spread word of my reassignment, I fear I might not have time to meet with the others tonight.”

She laughed, a deep chortle that broke in a snort. “I think that’s a bit above my pay grade, sir. Why can’t you just dream-hop to all your fetching boys yourself?” But Solas could feel it, the presence of reality seeping through the layers of the Fade and into his mind. Like a dam breaking way before the flood could hit. 

“Because I am waking up.”

* * *

Savh’vuni was shaking him, and he blinked listlessly up at her. He wanted to pull away and slip back into the Dreaming. He had work to do, and it was early. 

“Solas,” she laughed when he tried to turn away. “It’s well past dawn. Up and at 'em.”

He squinted up at her from over his shoulder. It was cold, and there was nothing worse than having to wake up freezing. He groaned when he sat up and started to get out of his body-warmed roll, the chill hitting him squarely in the back of the neck and running across his scalp and forearms. It was miserable. He ran more heat through himself with a wash of mana and sighed at the feel. Savh’vuni was already back outside. Her side of the tent was packed and empty. She must have been up for some time. 

How had he forgotten she was such an early riser? Like clockwork, like the very sun itself. 

Solas swallowed all of his complaints down, standing and righting his clothes which had twisted in the night, before pulling on his boots. His thighs and calves screamed at the strain from the past two days. He ignored them and proceeded to pack his roll. Solas carried his things out of the warm tent, bracing for the cold morning air that waited on the other side of it. Savh’vuni too. He braced himself for Savh’vuni and all the draining plans she must have in store for them, because that was the only smart thing he could manage with one foot still in the Dreaming. 

“No time for breakfast,” she said when she heard him emerge. “I’d like to make it to town before the market opens. We’ll get a better price on the furs if we can get in before the stalls are saturated with winter skins.”

Solas yawned. The sky was still pink. It was much too early. “I made contact with one of my agents last night. I will need to make a stop in Ansburg.” 

“If we have time,” she shrugged, breaking down the tent, and Solas went about snuffing out the embers of their fire with the side of his boot. 

“Might I help you in some way?” he asked, a habit—an ill-formed one that he had not remembered committing to in the first place. 

“You’re fine, thanks though.” She was already tearing down camp and throwing her packs onto her back and hip. She stood, taking a moment to stretch out her left arm and rolling it in its socket. A wet popping sound came from the joint, and Solas looked to her arm at the sound. Savh’vuni groaned, shaking the fake limb out a bit. She spread the metallic fingers, and he noticed they seemed a bit sluggish in their movements. They had been swift and fluid the night before. 

“Is everything well?” he asked, kneeling down and tying one of his boots which had come undone.

“Hm?” she asked, turning to him. “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s probably running low is all.”

“Low?” he asked, taking his cloak into his hands as he stood, wrapping it around himself and basking in the warmth it provided. 

“The bloodstone only fuels the lyrium for so long. It’s been averaging about a week, but it’s—” she rubbed at her brow through her bangs, a frustrated tic. “It’s finicky.” 

“Much like its master,” he mused, quickly reprimanding his sleep-muddled mind for the slip. He saw her bite at the inside of her cheek, trying to stall the pout. Savh’vuni shook her head before entering his space to strap his pack to him.

“You may have a point. Anyways, basically it will need to be topped off, but it also has a refractory period between each use.” She flushed, holding her hands out as if to stop him, and he finally took notice of the deep scar that split through the outer half of her right palm—opened again and again with each use of blood magic. The handkerchief that had been hiding it since Wycome was now tied round her neck, a splash of white and blue against the curve of her throat. “Which means that when that inevitably does happen, and this thing goes dead, well, it will be a bit before I can use it again.” She stepped away. “It’s got some kinks to work out.” 

She was always so protective of her creations. Always so sure that the next words out of his mouth would be a criticism. He did not know where the defensiveness sprang from originally; he had never been anything short of eager to listen to all of her thoughts and inventiveness. They were inspiring, creative. A gift. 

“It is an impressive feat you have created.” And the compliment was there again, right at the inside of his clenched teeth. He could say it now, he could, and why did it matter so much to him that he could finally deliver on all the words he had kept sealed behind his duty in years past? “June would have given half of his holdings for the chance to take it apart.”

Her eyes went a little wide, her cheeks deepening into a color a single shade off from her vallaslin. She shook her head, the gap in her teeth fully visible as she turned her head away. 

“I’ve already got plans for another. Hopefully, I can do something about the general pain factor that comes with its use. That is a glaring flaw that I should’ve done something about the first time around, but finite resources and—” She cut herself off. Her previous expressive mix of elation and pride entirely gone. “Well, we’ll see if I’ll even be around to try again.”

She might as well gut him there in the snow and let him bleed out until all the life was drained from him for all the damage her words could inflict. The pain that ran through him now would probably average about the same.

Savh’vuni swept their camp once more, making sure that nothing was left behind before she started walking in a direction degrees away from where the sun was rising. 

The wood grew less and less dense the closer they approached civilization. The snow had been cleared out of the main road when they finally came across it, and Solas relished the feel of solid even ground beneath his feet, how the strain was taken off his aching joints. 

It was surprising how pampered he had become with the eluvians back within his control. How had he been content walking everywhere with the Inquisition, and, more importantly, how had he even managed to wake up every day ready to endure more? Perhaps, it had been a lingering effect from uthenera that had spared him any aches and pains as they traipsed around the Hinterlands and beyond. Perhaps the Veil was finally taking its just toll on him. He deserved worse than a swift aging, as incomprehensible as the notion might feel to him. Growing old was not a problem he had ever thought he would have, what with the inherent immortality of the People and everything else. Old was also not an idea he could accurately conceptualize at the time, now though—well, the quicklings might have the right way about it. He would rather remove his own tongue than admit to having such a thought, but to imagine himself wrinkled and crouched and frail, like Deshanna—all mind, and no body, was a new world of temptation. Would he be able to look beside him and find Savh’vuni in the same state? Graying hair and laughter lines, and there with him each year that their mortality would grant them? 

There was no such world where he could actually accept such a notion. He refused to. A world where she did not live through future ages, inventing and smiling and rising like the sun she would be able to greet every morning for all of time would be a waste. What a useless thought. 

There was a noticeable pep in Savh’vuni’s step as they breached the walls of Ansburg, the early morning clatter of the market square gradually setting up for the day filling her with an energy that had been lacking in their quiet morning travels. 

Solas looked idly around, taking in the shapes of the homes and businesses that lined the main street. Some seemed to slope at angles that did not appear structurally sound, as if they were bracing themselves against their neighbors, taking all the support their foundation could give. It made him uneasy. The cobblestone lanes were still damp from yesterday’s snowfall, the wet shine perpetuating the cold.

The market already had a fair bit of traffic, chatter erupting in hushed pockets around the barely opened stands. Savh’vuni zeroed in on her target: a tanned human who sat squinting miserably down at a ledger behind a canvas-lined stall. Several animal horns were on display behind him, of varying size and color, an eclectic collection of dried hides strung up to the man’s left side. Savh’vuni was already making her way to him, and Solas had only managed to catch up as the two finished greeting each other. 

The man smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth: he was missing a great many of his teeth. His eyes narrowed impossibly more as he looked up at Savh’vuni, who towered over him. 

“What brings you to my shop, Dalish?” His voice was a rasp, like the crumpling of parchment, destroyed from years of pipe smoking if the yellowing of his remaining teeth was any indication.

Savh’vuni smiled wider, her canines sharp, gleaming, and white. She held out the two furs from the rabbits, cleaned and dried sometime since Solas had seen them last night. “How much?” she asked, shaking them in front of the shop-keeper’s face. 

“I’ll give you fifteen silver for ‘em.” The man tried his best to look disinterested. His thumb strummed at the edge of the ledger in his lap; the sound of pages flipping in quick succession was telling enough. 

“You give me fifteen silver and that bronto horn, and maybe we’ll be even,” she haggled, gesturing with the dangling hides towards the item in question. 

Solas rolled his eyes: it was too early for this. Why was she wasting the energy? He had seen her coin purse amongst all of her packing; it did not want for fullness. The man clicked his tongue, sitting up straighter.

“Eighteen silver,” he compromised.

“Twenty.” Her counter was disinterested, but firm. He had forgotten that she was actually decent at this. This miniature version of the Game, the one that she had been taught since she was a child; a second language learned in order to not be taken advantage of by the shems her people were forced to barter with. He wondered if it had been Soun’ise who had taught her to haggle like this, sharp and unrelenting, much like the way he must have taught her to wield a blade. He could make that connection now that he had met the man. 

The human threw his hand in the air, a broken exasperating sound following the movement. “Fine, fine. Twenty silver, and you’ll have no more.”

Solas could see the way Savh’vuni tried to hide her victory in how her lips evened out, her jaw twitching to prevent the smile. She laid the furs on the table, extending her hand out to receive the coin the shop-keeper counted out to her. 

“Good morning,” she said with a nod, pocketing the money. He made a gruff sound, going back to his ledger with a shake of his head. She turned to Solas. “It looks like there may be time for breakfast after all.” Savh’vuni patted the side of his arm, and he felt his stomach rumble in anticipation. 

They found a food stall that could not have been open for longer than a minute, two long tables filled with freshly-baked goods from end to end. Solas took in a deep breath as subtly as possible, his features unreadable as Savh’vuni perused the pastries. She finally stopped, gesturing down at an item, and then another on the other table, nodding to the baker before each was put in a bit of beeswaxed paper. The baker looked between the two of them, a strange look passing over their features, before they grabbed some sort of bun from a table behind them to add to the order. Savh’vuni tilted her head, pulling out more coins, but they waved her hand away and accepted the original amount. The baker bid them a ‘good morning’. Savh’vuni smiled, cheeks warm, as she said the same. 

Solas and Savh’vuni found a secluded spot atop a broken archway off the market proper, and she sat down, legs dangling off the side. She looked over to him, patting the space next to her, and Solas carefully sat, legs crossed and tight, as she unwrapped the first pastry. It smelled sweet, and was still warm, and she handed it off to him once he was situated. It was a croissant, much like the ones they had shared in Val Royeaux after that debacle with the Templars and the Chantry, mildly baffled and peckish. But the smell was different this time, more distinct. He took a bite, and a rush of warm, gooey chocolate hit his tongue. The satisfaction rushed to his brain, sugary and buttery and divine. He went in for another. 

Savh’vuni smiled gently at him, though he did not see it as immersed in his food as he was, and took a bite of her own pasty. Her legs kicked lazily back and forth where they were suspended as Solas licked his fingers clean with as much dignity as he could manage; he was becoming quite adept with his bound hands. Savh’vuni took her last bite. The third bonus item was still wrapped in her lap. 

“Do you know what it is?” he asked, nodding his head towards it. He was insatiable after the first rush of sugar hit his blood stream.

“A bread of some sort,” she said, unwrapping it. She brought it closer to her face. “It smells sour.” Savh’vuni split it with her thumbs, ripping the hard scored crust open and revealing a perfect airy middle. She handed him half, and they took the first bite in unison. They chewed, both of them visibly surprised as the flavor spread on their tongues. “It’s good, right?”

“Uniquely so. I do not think it is something I would initially choose. What a pleasant surprise.” 

“Of course you wouldn’t, you’re so easily blinded by the shiniest, tooth-rot-inducing thing.”

“Yes, I do believe that is entirely the point of pastry. To be sweet.”

She laughed, her head thrown back as she braced her weight against the metallic palm behind her. “Only when you still have milk teeth, Solas. How you can stomach all that sugar I will never know.”

“It is a talent, I confess.” 

“Careful, your namesake is showing,” she quipped, popping the final piece in her mouth. She brushed her hands of any remaining crumbs before standing up on a single foot in one fluid, balanced motion. “You said you needed to make contact with one of your agents?”

Savh’vuni held out a hand to him, which he took without hesitation, allowing her to pull him up to standing.

“Yes,” he said, relieved that her hand had returned to its usual warmth, just the same as he remembered, slotted perfectly with his—palm against palm. He pulled his own away as soon as it was proper. 

“Well, lead the way then.” 

They wove their way through the back alleys of Ansburg, the warmth and comfort from their breakfast already fading fast from his chest and hands. They passed by more homeless and destitute than he could count, the vast majority elves themselves, huddling for warmth as they stepped around people who looked like nothing more than a pile of moth-eaten scarves at a glance. The quiet fury that had pushed him through the ages bubbled in his gut. There was nothing he could do for them now, but in time he would. 

For once, Savh’vuni was not keeping pace with him, and he turned back, his heart stopping as he watched her kneel in front of a child who could not weigh more than a sack of grain with how hollow they looked beneath their rags. She took their hands into hers, dropping her remaining silvers into fingers that were no more than skin clinging to bone. 

Her kindness was a cruelty. What was one meal now to delay a slow death by starvation and neglect later? He hated himself for the thought, ashamed that he had allowed calculative cynicism to override the feeling of awed wonder that her simple act inspired in him. Her goodness was admirable. Everyone deserved comfort, even if it manifested in a final warm meal before consumption came. When had he forgotten that? 

“How much farther?” she asked when she finally caught up, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Not far,” he said, clearing his throat. The alley had led out onto an avenue, a tailor shop door chiming as two women entered, giggling in confidence. 

“Great, I’ll leave you to it then.”

“What?” 

She jangled her coin purse by her ear. It was nearly empty, the remaining coins clinking together inside the leather pouch. Had she been handing off her money the whole time? 

“See that tavern?” She pointed behind him, prompting Solas to turn with the movement. He found the large square sign hanging at the end of the block she must be indicating. “I’ll give you an hour to get your affairs in order.” Her tone shifted, challenging and confident. She tucked the purse back into her pocket. “I’ve got to get this topped off before we set out again, anyways.”

What she intended to do hit him in a visceral rush. Flashes of Savh’vuni accompaning Maryden in the Herald’s Rest, warm low vocals harmonizing with the resident bard. Solas would often be caught sitting in a corner seat by The Iron Bull, who eyed him knowingly across the room, as he feigned sips of tea that had long gone cold.

He remembered how she had told him once that she had dreamed of becoming a bard herself when she was a little girl. Her mother had told her a tale filled with glamour and adventure, of a heroine using the gift of song to save the day: a gift that Savh’vuni had discovered was also within her own possession as a child. She had continued to hold onto that dream until the moment her magic manifested late in her teenage years, and suddenly her future was set out in front of her. Her dream was stolen by the duties as a First, and then again by those of the Inquisitor. He had asked her if the inherent murder and bloodshed that came with such a career were a deterrent. She had laughed before she straddled him, holding an invisible knife to his bare throat. _“What do you think?”_

She came up to him, filling his senses, and he had to consciously hold himself back as he breached from the memory of her thighs around his hips. Savh’vuni took another small step, her hand tapping against the straps on his wrists to get his full attention. 

“Earn this,” she said, eyes sharp and penetrating. 

The message was clear. Do not betray her trust. This was a test. He blinked, and she was already heading towards the inn. She waved, and he returned it in a daze, but his feet moved in spite of his brain with all of its improper, traitorous thoughts, like how ridiculously well Savh’vuni’s high-waisted trousers accentuated the shallow slope of her hips.

The drop was not far, but it was early. As consistently competent as Laurea was, he could not rightly expect her to have completed the task already. Solas walked two streets over to where there was a nondescript fountain, erected and dedicated to someone no longer remembered: the plaque was tarnished, and vandalized beyond comprehension with no indication of restoration in sight. To the side of the fountain was a ring of stone benches, banked by deep flower beds that he imagined were lush in the spring. Now, however, the plants sat sad and scraggly. He counted the segments of stone and soil, pausing at the fifth bed, where he knelt down to find a wooden portfolio beneath it. Sliding the case out was not an elegant business, and Solas had to use his shoulder to brace himself against the ground as his hands made to grab at it, his cheek scraping against wet, loose gravel. He tried to wipe it off as he sat back on his knees and lifted the case up to the bench beside him. 

He flipped the latch open, surprised to find a single letter within its contents, and on the letter was Laurea’s scratchy script, which read: _‘A little more warning next time, yeah?’_

Solas sat himself down on the bench, wiping grit away from his pants as he did so before taking the letter in hands. He tore it open at the edge. Inside was a folded stack of detailed coming and goings of known Inquisition agents throughout the area. There was nothing indicative or incriminating within the contents of the report, and Solas let out an aggravated huff. He scanned the letter once more, making sure he had not missed any codewords or cyphers. Solas looked around himself quickly, ensuring that the area was completely devoid of anyone, Templar, city patrol, or otherwise, before he lit the parchment on fire with a steady inhale. He watched as it burnt down to the tips of his fingers, before he dropped it to the ground and stamped out the charred remains with his boot. 

Useless. He had hoped there would be something indicative of the measures Savh’vuni must be taking in this journey of hers. Something conclusive of the scale of what the Inquisition must be planning while he was engaged with their flighty leader. Solas would have to keep a tighter watch. He would have to put his people on high alert, and he would have to deal with the Inquisition spies that were already known in his ranks—the benefit of knowing who they were and being able to micromanage them did not outweigh any desperate orders that might be enacted now that Solas himself was not there to mitigate them. 

He closed the portfolio, turning the golden latch tight before sliding it back underneath the flowerbed with the side of his foot. It was still freezing, but Solas was so gone to his own frustrated ruminations over anything and everything Savh’vuni might be playing at behind the scenes that he continued to sit against the chilled bench as the cold leached into the underside of his legs. Every line of thought that he entertained came up empty, and he did not know if that was a good thing or the worst possible outcome for his present set of circumstances. 

After a time, enough was enough, and Solas stood to make his way to the tavern. The square sign came into view again in deep burgundy, chipped against the edges of a swooping lettering that read: _The Silent Hearth_. 

He shouldered open the front door and was met with the loud roar of the patrons inside. Solas idly thought that perhaps the owner should look into a change of title, something a little more apt, which would’ve given him better forewarning to the impending volume and subsequent ringing in his ears. The alcoved room felt too full, as if the walls were swelling outward to accommodate the sheer scale of people and sound trying to fit inside of it. There were scattered cheers, voices calling out for more drink, and, through the din of it all, Savh’vuni’s laugh. Her _real_ laugh. The one he heard when Bull would tease Dorian, or when Varric had a particularly vulgar anecdote to share. His eyes followed the sound, and he saw her standing tall beside a sandy-haired woman perched on a wooden stool with a lute in hand and looking up at the ex-Inquisitor as if Andraste herself had descended from on high. 

In fact, most of the room consistituted of the fairer sex, all looking as enamored with Savh’vuni as the musician as they held her in their female gaze. The rounds of deafening applause Solas had walked into finally died down, and he carefully made his way between sweaty, unaware bodies towards the bar. He managed to catch Savh’vuni’s eye when he finally breached the other side of the crowd presently enraptured with her; some of which were pointing reproachfully at the sulking males seated around them, shaking their drunken shoulders in their fervent, chastising grip. He gravitated to the sparse standing room available across from where the barkeep poured drink after drink. A thin man with a fat neck, blotchy skin, and the biggest grin Solas had seen turned to offer him an overfull pint. Solas shook his head, and the man shrugged. 

Solas looked over his shoulder towards Savh’vuni, who was whispering down to the lute player—her metal hand covering her mouth against the other woman’s ear. When he turned back to stare morosely into his own hands against the wooden counter of the bar, he noticed that the proprietor must have slid the tankard closer in the interim. The man’s wide lips pulled wider still when he finally accepted the offering. The man must have been content enough with the action alone because he just as quickly went back to his other tasks and began to dry a wooden cup with a rag that was littered with browned stains—sanitarily worrisome, but otherwise irrelevant. 

The sound of rhythmic strumming brought his attention fully out of his lingering frustrations at the lack of information he had managed to gather, and he rested his elbow against the bar as he angled himself towards where the two women were starting their song. The lute player strummed again, plucking as if to test each tuned string, before nodding up to Savh’vuni, apparently settled and ready. Savh’vuni glowed as the two began, features expressive and happy. She would have never survived as a bard, she had too many tells, but when she finally began to sing, it didn’t matter. The room fell into stillness as they all sat ready to listen. 

Solas’ heart leapt in his chest when he heard Savh’vuni for the first time in years like this: lyrical and melodic. Her voice projected well, and it carried to him, washing him away in the tide of her vocals. Her song was hopeful in tone, but the lyrics themselves hurt, each line having a steady beat and arching cadence; sustained notes blending verse into chorus and back again. A part of Solas wished he could deafen himself for a time to spare himself from how easily he succumbed to her words, but the greatest flaw in that logic was that he would be unable to hear her in the first place, and that was a worse fate. This was a gift, a glimpse of normalcy that he had known for a time before he had taken his path back into his own hands and thrown all of her smiles, all of her songs, and all of her love away.

The music came to a slow, quiet finish, Savh’vuni holding his gaze as the final words left her mouth, and it was as if the room was a world away; there was nothing outside of the two of them and the unspoken feelings that were working their way to the forefront of his mind.

The female patrons applauded like the crack of thunder, and it had to have been an act of divine intervention sent to break Solas from his own thoughts. He was slipping, and such a thing was unimaginable not three days ago. Their line of sight was broken, and he turned himself away, burying the frenzied steccato of his heartbeat into the ale still before him. 

Savh’vuni gave a short bow of her head and shoulders, sort of bobbing up and down three times in appreciation of the applause, before she held her arm out to gesture towards the musician who had accompanied her. The two grinned at each other, beyond pleased, before heartily shaking hands. The woman said something to Savh’vuni which she agreed to, her smile split and tooth-gap gleaming. 

The two bowed together then, a definitive finality to it as the woman that crowded them started to settle back down. The noise evened out into a more subdued chatter that allowed Savh’vuni to make her way to the bar—or at least she attempted to, having to stop several times as she passed by overfull tables, eager people with equally eager hands which were used to thank her. Solas watched as coin was pushed into her palms by more than one person, and she thanked each of them graciously. He could faintly hear her polite insistence that it wasn’t necessary before she pocketed the coin with a speed that was contrary to her placating words. He felt the corner of his mouth pull up minutely, and he shook his head.

“You’re back,” Savh’vuni said, taking up the space directly beside him. “And so soon, too.” 

“Yes,” he nodded. “It would have been a shame to have missed your performance.”

“It’s nothing you haven’t heard before.” And Solas could see the way she tried to hide her face from him, tucking her hair behind her ear before straightening out her fringe with a quick, jerking movement. 

“The same could be said for each recurring sunset, and yet we still stop to appreciate its beauty.” Solas had not intended to wax poetic so succinctly, and now he feared that the heat rising into his face would equal Savh’vuni’s. He rocked the tankard between his palms, staring into the sloshing liquid as if it held the answer to why he was intrinsically impetuous. “Your words have resonated in the hearts of Ansburg’s gentlewomen this morning.” 

“Yes, disappointment masquerading as love seems to be a universal concept among us,” she demurred. He ignored the vague stabbing feeling radiating between his third and fourth rib. “Is there a worthier cause to marinate our livers for so early in the day?”

Solas chuckled. “The subject matter of your songs, however, does beg the question. It seems you are a woman scorned, or perhaps, just terribly cross. With me, in particular.”

“Y’know”—Savh’vuni laughed in a stilted, uncomfortable way; embarrassed at being caught out—”not all of my songs are about you, Solas.”

“I did not mean to presume—,” he began lifting his cup to his lips for a way to keep his hands occupied.

“—But that one was.” Her interjection was laid with all the teasing cheekiness he had come to expect from her. 

He inhaled in order to speak again, which wasn’t the smartest thing to do in tandem with a sip of his drink. The air caught in his throat as he choked on the stalest ale he had ever had the misfortune to taste and now choke on. 

She smacked him hard on the back, smiling deviously into the palm where her chin was resting to help him clear the liquid from his lungs. Or perhaps it was simply a good cover to enact some physical retribution against his shoulder blade. Her true motivations were unknown.

“Or it will be, maybe. We’ll have to see if you make it past your drink first,” she continued, finding ample fuel for the pyre of his ineptitude to correctly breathe, or drink, or both, apparently.

“Do not trouble—” Solas cleared his throat again with a final hacking sound. “Do not trouble yourself on my account.”

“And why not?” she pouted, and it was surprising how quickly her lips could turn from one emotion to the other. Presently, the lower lip slipped from its jutted position into an amused curve. “I really have nothing else going on at the moment.”

“I am aware.” He had only finished reading an extensive report on how little Savh’vuni had in the works not twenty minutes ago. 

“Did you get what you needed, then?” Her clever mind put together the words he had obfuscated. 

“In a sense,” he nodded, wiping at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. 

“Great, we should get a move on.” She pushed herself fully to standing, laying a gold piece on the counter and knocking against the wood. The proprietor nodded at her, continuing about his duties, and the two of them wove their way out of increasingly drunken bodies for so early in the day. 

The sun had barely hit noon when they were back out onto the street. Savh’vuni adjusted her packs and coat before stretching her arms up high to the sky, going up on tiptoes to relieve each and every muscle throughout her body. Solas turned his gaze to a shop across the street, admiring a rather drab cap that sat on display in the window. Should he start wearing a hat? No, that would be an unnecessary frivolity, probably unflattering if he were to truly consider it, but its true merit was how it had provided distraction enough from watching the way Savh’vuni moved beside him.

“Alright then,” she said, already three paces ahead before he could take notice of it. Solas fell into stride easily enough, and she hummed happily. “What a productive morning, and look—” Her coin purse was out again, and the seams bulged in her palm. “I even made a profit. I don’t know about you, but I have a very good feeling about the rest of this trip.” 

And after years upon years of the world spitting out every worst case scenario imaginable into Savh’vuni’s life since he had met her, really, she should’ve known better than to tempt fate, because as the two of them set off again three sets of eyes began tracking his and Savh’vuni’s movements unknowingly from the shadows—one on her, another on himself, and the last locked onto the money.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're reaching the end of exposition and finally heading into fun. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, or left kudos! They have really made my day, which means a lot considering *gestures vaguely to the world at present*.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the official TToF'H Spotify playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/461MyjSK8R7khkRP4xuT9h)

* * *

* * *

The road that led them out of Ansburg’s northern gates was framed by a smattering of quaint cottages, all mixed stone and hay roofs. The sound of children laughing and shrieking while they raced down the hill leading out of the city proper filtered through the air. It was homely, all these little lives and their makings of them—the varied circumstances that dwelled and changed from street to street. 

The gray morning sky that had threatened more snow gave way to patches of blue and yellow sun instead as the afternoon set in. The air was fresh and clean outside of the city, and they took the sloping cobbled path until it transitioned into mud roads engraved with the tread of carriages and mounts alike. That, too, evened out again the further out they went until they were greeted by more forest. Solas saw Savh’vuni take in a deep inhale of pine and evergreen from his periphery, noting the way her shoulders relaxed. It must be a comfort to be back in the woodlands she had grown up in, or around at least. 

Savh’vuni started stretching her prosthetic again, rotating it in slow rounded motions before flexing each mechanical finger. It was markedly slower, the movements diminished somehow, sluggish. 

“Is everything still well?” he asked. 

“Yep, peachy.” Her dismissal was apparent. She changed the subject. “Whatever happened to Flemeth?” 

Savh’vuni’s question was innocuous, as if commenting on the weather, and Solas became more aware of the incessant thrum of a life outside of his own—wriggling against his consciousness for acknowledgement. She continued, undeterred by his slowed steps, unaware of his trembling hands. “I can feel it, y’know, the shift of her within you. The well is having an absolute fit whenever you get too close. So, care to tell me what that's all about?”

Solas did not intend to answer her, but it came from him regardless. “She is gone, or as gone as one of her like can be.” He took in a quiet breath as he thought of Flemeth’s lifeless body in his hands, the swelling agony of having to scrape and claw for whatever power he could manage to hoard for himself again. Of how the cycle of power, and always being in need of more, continued to repeat itself, how his fighting could never truly stop, no matter what obstacle might be in his way. Friend, foe, ally, lover. It mattered little. “It was not a pleasant exchange.”

“Ah, well then.” She coughed awkwardly, fiddling with a groove in her metal hand. “I won’t tell Morrigan if you don’t.” 

“No,” he said, grateful for the levity. “No, I had not planned on it.”

Their steps fell in line again, Savh’vuni leading them as if the narrow trail was the one that led home, or whatever it was that a Dalish considered such. She lived in a unique circumstance now with her clan known and settled in Wycome, and he wondered how they were all managing it. They had seemed comfortable enough in the brief time he had been there. There were no signs of a great underlying struggle—not like in the alienages he had frequented while recruiting for his forces, with their scorch-marked homes and bloodstained streets. Skinny arms and skinnier lives, powerless to the powers at play, but not for much longer. 

It was strangely quiet, or rather, Savh’vuni was strangely subdued. Traveling with her was typically a lively affair: never a moment without incessant chatter or questions, a bawdy song sung high into the sky with Sera joining in off-key. He and Blackwall would quietly pull up the rear, sharing a rare smile known only to the two men. They really had been happy for a time, and that was with Sera present.

Solas broke the silence, if only to use it as a distraction from the memories. “What destination does our future hold?”

“Antiva,” Savh’vuni responded, “or close enough. Antiva-adjacent. And down a little.”

“Wonderful.” Solas scanned the canopy overhead. He had a rock in his boot that had started to make its way deeper into the arch of his foot—an annoyance, much like the rest of his life at present.

“Why, was there somewhere in particular you wanted to go? I’m open to suggestions.”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “I am merely here to bear witness, correct?”

She laughed, rolling her black eyes. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one waiting to see the exact moment you realize that you don’t have all the answers, or carry all the responsibility for everything, all the time, always. Shocking, I know.”

“Do you intend for us to walk the entire way?” Solas asked, changing the subject himself this time. It had been his own fault for engaging her in this way. What had he expected? 

“For most of it, yeah. A bit of exercise will do some good for your old bones.” 

His old bones felt about ready for a nap. “Your faith in these ‘old bones,’ as you say, is appreciated, however misguided.” 

“What? Don’t tell me you’re tired already,” she said, turning and walking backwards. He couldn’t stop the mounting worry that she would trip. A fallen branch snapped somewhere behind them. “You can take it.”

“I will endeavor to try,” Solas acquiesced, his tone losing all playful notes, and Savh’vuni picked up on it immediately. She was looking just past his shoulder. Another branch snapped under a heavy weight, the distant crunch of footsteps grew closer. 

They looked at one another, and words passed between them unspoken as their situation became apparent. They had been followed, and most people who followed two elves out into the woods generally didn’t have good intentions towards them. Most of the time, anyway, and this time definitely, knowing their luck.

Solas could feel the adrenaline bleed through his bloodstream and his heart picked up the pace to heighten his senses. His arms went lax, and his posture widened. Savh’vuni subtly put herself between him and whoever was approaching, as if he needed her to guard him—bound as he was, he’d still be more than capable of handling himself in a fight. 

Two figures finally broke the treeline, large men with sunken features, armed and hulking—and Solas saw the way Savh’vuni’s hand inched closer to the knife tucked away at the small of her back.

“Morning, gentlemen,” she greeted them, giving a small wave of her other hand to distract from the one still slowly going for her weapon. “Perfect weather for a midday stroll.” Her smile was too wide, and Solas had seen it on her face before when she would make her way through the main hall of Skyhold, her stride derailed by noble after noble, and how by the time she had reached the end of the hall, that smile would be strained into something entirely too fake to be mistaken for anything but a grimace.

The two did not seem all that interested in exchanging pleasantries. Or perhaps they simply couldn’t, lacking the sufficient cranial aptitude to make speech and courtesy possible. Either way, their silence did not speak well of their purpose here and now.

A third man joined them, slighter and greasier than the first two—probably the “brains” behind the operation if Solas were to guess (and he employed this term very loosely). The three bandits standing across from them painted a clear picture: They had seen two elves traveling off the main road, and they had felt compelled to take advantage of them. Well, weren’t they about to be unpleasantly surprised? 

They unsheathed their own weapons, and Solas could feel his fist clench, silently willing them to make the first move, to give him enough prompting to unleash some of the frustration that he had been trying and failing to subdue since he had woken up on Savh’vuni’s floor in Wycome. 

“Wow, not even going to pretend like you’re not about to rob us.” Her teeth glinted for a moment in his periphery. “Fine then, let’s get this over with.” And in she went.

The strategy seemed to be to overwhelm them with the threat of magic and hope it was enough to persuade them into disengaging, if the way Savh’vuni summoned mana to herself was any indication. She wasn’t going in with the intent to kill, she didn’t plan to strike straight for the throat like he remembered her doing against enemies up and down the Storm Coast, with rain-slicked hair stuck to her face—much shorter than it was now, tickling at her cheeks and the curves of her vallaslin. 

He could feel the heat of her to his left, the rapid crack of fire spells being pushed into reality through the Veil enough to keep the three of them back, but even as they approached closer and closer, she continued to use her magic as a warning, her flames like the colorful spots on a poisonous frog. She used her magic defensively, and the tactic was sound enough, her enemies often too engaged with the long range mage to realize the lethal mistake of breaking into close quarters with her. Another surge of her mana, familiar until the moment it snapped back beyond her reach and fizzled away. 

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Savh’vuni groaned, with a curse thrown in for good measure, as she ducked beneath the first blow from the largest of the three bandits. Solas could only spare her a glance before he was similarly engaged and saw instantly what must have happened. Her prosthetic hung limp and useless against her side, one of her daggers dropped to the ground from its grip faltering. Savh’vuni stood, gritting her teeth in a snarl, as she reached for the knife in her boot with her flesh and blood hand, stance wide and knees bent as she took in the odds. 

They were outnumbered by one, and they needed to get gone and hide their tracks before this got out of hand and the shems decided to call for any delinquent reinforcements. There was no helping it then, with him being bound and Savh’vuni down a limb, he’d have to take more drastic action than he’d care to employ against simple highwaymen. 

If he had the time, he would’ve given a small prayer of forgiveness for using Mythal’s essence for this sort of petty justice, but at that moment the “brains”—who had not been engaged in fighting either of them (further solidifying his theory)—went to strike at Savh’vuni, and Solas acted without intent. His eyes flashed, and stone twisted through flesh and sinew solidifying the man before a scream could break from his lips, frozen in terror. 

He felt Savh’vuni’s eyes on him, and he could do nothing but push through the invasive, accusatory feeling of her stare. He stood taller, stalking towards the remaining men in intimidating strides. He relished the way the bandits’ fear-sludged minds finally began to process what was coming for them. Solas doubted they knew anything of Fen’Harel, but of unleashed and unregulated mages? Yes, he was sure they were putting some of the pieces together about the remaining minutes of their life. 

Death was coming, clear and simple, and Solas watched as the most base instincts worked at a primal level to try to enable survival in these small-minded humans. There would be none. Solas could feel the magic swell within him, coaxed with the softest touch and begging to be employed. The snares sparked angrily around his bound wrists—

Blood sprayed from the throat of the closest bandit, Savh’vuni standing just behind with a red-dipped blade in her only working hand. She didn’t wait for the body to drop before swiftly making her way to her next target, another body stock-still from fear and pliable to the sharp edge of her weapon. Solas watched with a held breath at the graceful way she worked through them. 

Savh’vuni had taken down the two men with all the efficiency of a seasoned killer. She breathed a little heavier, a thick splatter of blood ran right across her cheeks and chin; it blended perfectly with her own vallaslin. She inhaled, standing to her full height before letting it out. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” she screamed to the sky, as angry as he had ever heard her. “Not even three days? What is the _fucking_ _point_?!” She threw down her largest pack and practically tore off the protective case she had strapped to the bottom of it. She kneeled down onto the wet ground and flipped the lid open, muttering a procession of increasingly vulgar curses towards the Creators before quickly moving onto Andraste and beyond. Even Genitivi made the list, just below “warbling dick puncher,” whom-or-whatever that was directed to. 

“Savh’vuni,” Solas said, making his way around the bodies that littered the cold earth. She didn’t hear him as she shucked off her coat and rolled up her left sleeve to expose the prosthetic where it met her own skin. He tried again. “Savh’vuni, wait.”

“What?” she snapped, turning to him, and what a sight she looked: fierce, brutal, and coated in blood-fueled adrenaline.

“Your palm,” he started, caught wrong-footed by her intensity. He shook his head as if that would help him clear it. “It is covered in filth. That cannot possibly be the best way to remove the arm.” 

And it was like he had pulled her from wherever she had gone in her frustration, whether it was simply at her own creation failing when she had most needed it, or something greater than the moment, he wasn’t sure. But he watched as she slowly came back out of her rage, staring down into her blood and dirt-crusted fingers. She clenched it tight before reaching into her pack for her waterskin, then removing the handkerchief around her neck to clean her hand before she attempted to remove her prosthetic. Why she did not just keep it on until they could find adequate shelter was beyond him, but he knew enough about Savh’vuni to know that it was better to let her feel and process her anger than to convince her of practicality. Knew enough of the way she reacted to failure or shortcomings to know that suggestions, no matter how well intentioned, would only land flat at her feet for her to stomp on in a fit. 

No, Savh’vuni did not handle these sorts of hiccups well, especially when it came to her own doings. Even Dagna had known well enough to vacate the Undercroft if such a mood struck their impervious leader, dragging Harritt away with her with a strength that he had not expected of the dwarf at the time. 

Savh’vuni was trying to pour some water from her still-full skin onto her palm and clearly struggling to manage it with only the crook of her elbow and side. Solas crouched down and took it so he could pour it for her. Her lips thinned, and she refused to look at him as she pulled her hand from the stream to rub it against Deshanna’s handkerchief where it lay on her thigh. 

Solas stood, capping the water skin. Savh’vuni went for the latch against the edge of the prosthetic, pulling the release mechanism open, and allowed the arm to fall away. The base of her amputation looked raw and angry: red, irritated, and swollen along where the metal cuff had dug in to keep it attached. Solas restrained himself from offering to heal it, afraid his offer would be seen as patronizing at best and mocking at worse in her current mood. She put the prosthetic into its case, snapping it shut with noticeably less anger than she had opened it with. That was a good sign.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, her hand still on the case and her eyes on her lap. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. She was truly very strange. 

“There is no need for apologies,” he said, eyes tracking a bit of blood making its way down the sharp blade of her ear and along the piercings there. Savh’vuni strapped the case back to her pack before she stood, pulling it up onto her right shoulder. “I am curious, however, why not simply keep the arm attached until it can work again?”

“I could,” she huffed, trying and failing to bring the other loop around the remains of her left arm. She got it on the fourth try. “The weight of the limp prosthetic chafes like a mother, though. Also, I’ll have to recalibrate it before it’s ready for reuse. Mostly, it needs a time-out; it knows that malfunctioning mid-battle is unacceptable.” Solas nodded as if these were all perfectly valid reasons. He did not have the inclination to debate her on the finer details of the effectiveness of disciplining non-sentient entities. 

Savh’vuni gathered herself enough to employ her equal-opportunity pilfering and made quick work of the three dead bodies. Unsurprisingly, they held nothing of value—a fake gold ring being the most prized find. Savh’vuni promptly chucked it into the dirt. 

“Well, that was a waste. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” 

Her vulgarity only meant that the anger had subsided, not vanished completely. Solas nodded again noncommittally, not wanting to risk her deflating ire. They left the bodies and blood behind.

The quiet was deafening. Not even the swooping call of a bird or the skitter of some creature out beyond their sight could detract from the way Savh’vuni was furiously wiping the bloodied cloth over her face to try and clean it. She had missed that bit on her ear he had been distracted by earlier. He almost offered to help. Almost.

“Onward to Antiva?” he asked if only for something to do besides stew in her erratic mood. 

“Or very near it, yeah.” She doubled down again on her lack of clarity. It was intentional, then.

Solas changed his mind: the violent quiet was preferable. He counted the number of animal tracks left in the undisturbed remnants of snow they sludged through, both small and big: some manner of bear must have passed through if the uptick in smaller, more frantic tracks were to be believed. A story written in the ground if only one looked for it. 

Savh’vuni folded the bloodied handkerchief into a neat square, tucking it into her back pocket. She still had not managed to get the gory patch on her ear, and Solas was going to have to live and die with that bit of information. 

“It should be warmer there,” Savh’vuni said after a while, the forest growing deep and thick around them—a world onto itself. “In not-quite Antiva, which is great because I’m sick of the snow. It’s so cold this year.”

To the contrary, it had been a mild winter thus far. “As you say, then,” he agreed aimlessly. 

“What?” she asked. 

Solas quirked an eyebrow at her. He had truly meant nothing by it. “If you say it is cold, then it is cold.”

Savh’vuni shook her head, slowing her long strides. “No, say what you mean. I know that tone.”

He had not thought that he had a tone, but if anything, it was not the winter that was the issue this year, but the—oh. 

How had she known what he had not even consciously acknowledged? Could it be as simple as her knowing that he always had an opinion about everything, or was it something more? An intimate understanding of a person that went even deeper than they knew themselves? Could he hope for that? Should he?

“It is only that it may, perhaps, be a consequence of you engaging repeatedly in blood magic. Such magic dampens your connection to the Fade, and thus, your usual body temperature, which was tied to your affinity for fire.” He cleared his throat. “If I remember correctly, you used to run unnaturally hot.” 

She bit her lip, going to cross her arms and having to abort the motion due to the present lack of her left limb. Solas expected an explosion. He expected some outrage maybe, or denial. 

Instead, he got a sigh as she said, “It makes sense.”

He nodded. “Had you not considered this possibility when prototyping?” 

She laughed, not happily. 

“This is the prototype, Solas.”

Ah, well. Yes, he supposed that explained a great deal. 

An uncomfortable silence sat between them, a heavy mix of guilt and apprehension that prickled against his mind. Savh’vuni sighed, an unexpectedly ragged sound. 

“Speaking of prototypes, it looks like the snares don’t work as well as I thought. You still have access to Mythal.”

His heart stopped. He had given away his small advantage in a situation that was intentionally stacked against him. Foolish. “So it would seem.”

She scoffed. “You knew, of course you did.”

“I suspected as much,” he insisted.

Savh’vuni turned towards him with her mouth open, a snide comment at the ready, but she swallowed it down. She went quiet, suddenly deep in thought.

“You could have used it against me,” she reasoned some minutes later. “Compelled me through the well.”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t.”

He nodded. “I did not.”

“I see,” she said, biting at her lip. 

Again the suffocating silence. Solas clenched his hands where they were bound.

“Thank you.” And her words were spoken softly, but still they carried to him. Solas hid his surprise in the high-collar of his cloak. 

“It is no trouble,” he said, and he truly meant it.

Night came like a cool balm against the last lingering touches of Savh’vuni’s irritation. They made camp in a shallow embankment, hidden by old thick roots and storm curved trunks. A fire was made, burning low as they fed it the last scraps of their dinner before making ready for bed. 

Solas still averted his eyes when Savh’vuni stripped her pants and her top off, having washed them in some melted snow along with the handkerchief to get rid of the remaining traces of blood, before being laid out by the fire to dry overnight. Solas finally got the rock out of his boot and sighed at the cuts that had formed in not one but four spots of his arch and heel. A wash of healing magic sorted that, and he tucked himself into his own bedroll, resting his head back onto his still cuffed palms as he looked up into the starry, clear sky. With Savh’vuni being without both arms, and Solas being without both hands, they forwent the tent.

“Good night, Solas,” Savh’vuni said. Natural as anything, familiar. 

“Good night, Savh’vuni.” And he should not have felt so light while held on an invisible leash, tied to the ex-Inquisitor.  
  


* * *

  
  


Solas dropped into the Fade faster than he had in months. His body was so worn from traveling—from the quick, demanding pace that Savh’vuni set since the start of the whole debacle—that he had been worn down to the simplest state of exhaustion. 

He ought to meet with his agents, at least attempt to personally see to the delegation of his personal responsibilities while he was indefinitely on involuntary, mandated leave. The problem was that the dreamscape he had unconsciously constructed for himself was comfortable: the tall, swaying grass was soft beneath where he lay, the breeze was warm, and he could hear the sound of water streaming somewhere in the distance. The sky was open, pre-Veiled. A kaleidoscope of iridescent color so beautiful, it hurt to look at it and remember how things used to be. 

Solas closed his eyes to it, folding his free hands neatly on his chest as he let all the world soften infinitesimally around him. It was all his to command anyway, his to exercise as much control over as he pleased, and if he pleased for a bit of peace, then it would be so. 

“I didn’t want to trick you,” Cole said, suddenly beside him, his usual hat replaced with something much more reserved. He carved out a bit of space in the grass that crunched beneath his feet. “But you were not listening. A rock and a hard place to hold you accountable. She promised she wouldn’t hurt you.” 

“Ah, so you have come to explain yourself.” Solas stretched out his legs farther, digging his heels into the soft ground. He tried to curb his irritation, but it was a trying task. Cole could suss it out, regardless.

“Maybe, if you will listen,” Cole said. He picked at the frayed edge of his pants, ducking his head down towards his chest.

Solas sighed, sitting up a bit and resting his weight back onto his elbows at his sides. Fine then, what further harm could be done? 

“It was wrong of you to deceive me, and it was wrong of her to ask you to.”

“She did not ask, I wanted to— _needed_ to.”

That had him closing his mouth against the lecture he had only half-prepared for this moment. 

“Why?” Solas asked instead, mildly surprised. “You are Compassion. Deception is not in your nature. You could do irreparable damage to yourself, Cole.”

“This is compassion. A friend has been hurting, and I am trying to heal the hurt. Stubborn and willful, never listening, like a creature left to die in the cold for fear of the fire.” 

“Yes, well, Savh’vuni is not known for her flexibility.” In that context, at least. 

“No. Not her—hurt, but healing, brighter by the day.” Cole fixed his clouded stare onto him, and Solas could feel himself shrink under the scrutiny. “ _You_.”

Solas scoffed. “So you lied to help me? That does not seem like the most efficient means to enact your compassion.”

“What would Pride know of it?” Cole snapped, and Solas was taken aback again. When had Cole grown snarky? He had to be spending too much time with Varric. Or Savh’vuni. Or both. Such wonderful influences, the two of them. “Always fighting, always screaming, but quietly. Only loud enough for your heart to hear. I have been listening, and I’d like for it to stop. I want to _help_ , Solas. And you do, too. You like the quiet.”

Solas was sitting up now, determinedly glaring straight ahead. 

“She promised she wouldn’t hurt you,” Cole insisted, as if that were some comfort. The damage had already been done. “She’s happy, happier, happiest when she sees you there. Loving too tightly, but she is trying not to—afraid you’ll push away again. Lost and gone, a spring choked dry, but with you it pours.”

He swallowed thickly. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to be confronted with all the sweet possibilities he had been knowingly ignoring. “There are others you should fix your attention on, Cole.”

“Solas,” Cole tried to reach for him, but Solas was quicker—shifting the Fade and sending Cole and all his misguided help away. 

He gulped down breath after breath, trying to ease the clutching, maddening grip that had taken hold of his heart. He needed to be calm. He needed to be in control. He needed to meet with his agents. He needed to plan and delegate and mitigate. 

He would in just a moment. He would once his pulse evened out again. Just one more minute, one more second, and he would pull himself together.

Solas took another deep breath in, and Fen’Harel came back out.

* * *

A drip of frigid water fell from the melting canopy overhead and landed squarely on his left eyelid, both the chill and the force of it jolting him into wakefulness quickly enough that he felt dizzy. His hand went up to wipe it away while the other…the other...

Solas sat up, fully awake as he looked down into his hands. Unbound, untethered, free and separately movable—the snare now wound like a bracelet around his right wrist. He reached for shapeshifting, imagining the form taking hold within him before the sparking smites started up again. They still kept his magic in a constrained chokehold. So the wards still functioned. That was fine, annoying yes—infuriating even if he lingered on it too long, but it was still a vast improvement. He could work with this. 

Void take him, it was sickening how relieved he was to have full use of his range of motion again. He should have been upset at Savh’vuni for letting it drag out as long as it had, but the fact that he now had both of his hands all to his own could only mean one thing: he had proved himself convincingly enough. Savh’vuni trusted him. Savh’vuni—

Solas looked around camp. Savh’vuni was nowhere to be seen. 

Her roll was already packed, but the fire was freshly remade. She had not left. Solas laid back down, shaking his head before shooting back up again—tightening his jaw against the chill, funneling mana in the form of heat through his limbs as he got fully dressed. Easily. No need to finagle his cloak around his shoulders, or shimmy into his pants, or require ancient spells that needed more mana spilled into them than was worth the output in this Veiled world. Simple pleasures, really.

Savh’vuni came back not long after Solas had made himself busy by starting to break down their campsite. The menial task somehow less so as he quietly revelled in his own usefulness. 

“Good morning,” she said quietly, going straight for her things. She had reattached the arm; Deshanna’s handkerchief was wrapped tightly around her right palm. 

“Yes,” he nodded, but something was off. Something that itched like a bent collar at the back of his neck. She wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t acknowledge what she had done. 

Could she possibly be upset? No, that didn’t sit right. Her body language screamed of embarrassment, but Solas could not comprehend why she would be feeling as such. It would be delightful if true, however, a rare chance to offset her as she had him.

Solas threw on his own pack, which he could finally do himself without Savh’vuni’s assistance, before grabbing up what supplies he could. He brought them over to her, handing them off one by one, and still she refused to acknowledge him any more than taking what was offered and stuffing it into her own bags in a less organized fashion than in days previous. 

His eyes snagged on the bright pattern of the handkerchief again, Deshanna’s words bouncing around in his mind. The offer was off his tongue before the impulse could be stopped. 

“Would you permit me to heal that?” he asked. “Your hand?”

She stopped, frozen over and impenetrable like the Emprise. Savh’vuni stood slowly enough that he could convince himself she was not moving at all, and lifted her injured hand out as if preparing to have it lopped off. He supposed the last time she had offered herself to him like this he had done exactly that, so it wasn’t a baseless worry. He tried not to take her trepidation to heart, even if it did sting.

Solas laid the back of her hand in his left palm. It was cool to his touch, and it was strange how upsetting he found it now that he knew the source of the change. Carefully, he unwrapped the wound, tucking the cloth into his pocket. 

The cut was deep, right in line with the scar that ran against the skin, but it had already clotted. He smoothed his right hand over her exposed palm, running healing magic over the cut until it stitched itself together cleanly, leaving a dried trace of blood behind. He turned her hand over in his, perhaps with more deliberate emphasis than needed when switching from one free hand to the other.

Savh’vuni rolled her eyes as she took her hand back, biting back a smile. Her cheeks were noticeably flushed as she bent down to grab a strap of her pack, assembling it all on her person accordingly. They finished striking camp in silence, Solas trying to hide the triumphant beat that was filling him from his feet upward. He knew, but it wasn’t until they were back on their way to Almost-Antiva that he decided to push for confirmation again. 

“I take it that we are not to speak of what it is that you have done,” he said, quietly enough that she might mistake him as talking to himself.

“Well, now we are,” she grimaced, hands tightening on the straps around her shoulders. “Thanks for bringing it up.” 

Solas gave a short chuckle. He might as well dig in. “You could have done this for the entirety of our journey thus far, and saved us both a great deal of awkwardness. You do realize that, yes?”

“Of course I do, Solas. I’m not completely inept.” Her long-suffering sigh only managed to imply the opposite.

“Then why not do so earlier? For what purpose did you subject me to being bound as I was?”

She mumbled something, indistinct as she hid the bottom of her face in the collar of her jacket. 

“Pardon? I did not catch that.”

“It’s because…” Savh’vuni bit down on her lip. 

“Yes?” He had her now. She was close to breaking, he _had_ her. She cleared her throat, trying to stand taller. 

“It’s because I only just thought of it last night,” she gritted through clenched teeth.

_Oh_. 

She _was_ embarrassed. He knew it! A large red flush crept up on her cheeks stronger than he had ever seen. She still would not look at him. Solas laughed, though he tried not to. He tried to hide it in a cough, but then she shot him a look so affronted that it only made him laugh harder. 

“Go ahead, I deserve it.” She pouted with her arms folded across her chest. 

“No, I did not mean—” He stiffened, realizing that his hand had reached out and taken her elbow in his grip. They both stopped, much like his heart in his chest. She looked at him for the first time that morning, slack-jawed and wide-eyed—hopeful. He had not touched her like this since they had parted. Had not even tried to reach for her like this since he was forcefully brought back into her company again. The metal of her new arm hidden away under all her layers buzzed at a foreign frequency under his fingertips, and he dropped his hand away. His laughter was long dead now, and he cast his eyes to the ground as he stepped back. 

He cleared his throat. 

“I did not mean that you had done any less than you could have.” He found her eyes again, managing what he hoped was an encouraging smile to help diffuse the stagnate tension that wavered between them. “I am grateful for your trust. I know it is not easily given.”

She nodded, starting down the path again. “And it’s not easily won, either, yet here we are.”

“So it would seem.”

There was a lot to be said for the fact that within an hour of being allowed full use of his arms again, he had used them to reach for her. The implications filled him with mixed parts dread, trepidation, and a small, insidious hope. They walked on, Savh’vuni a step ahead of him, the horizon wide and open before them. 

The promise of exploration was starting to feel more like an opportunity than an obligation, and he was all too aware of how dangerous that thought was. After all, hope was what landed him there in the first place. Whether it had originated within himself or the woman walking beside him was getting harder to differentiate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Little Einsteins theme intensifies*

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the Supreme Leader of my heart, [Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard/pseuds/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard). I owe you a great debt, my friend. 
> 
> Comments greatly appreciated. 
> 
> Please come and chat with me on tumblr or twitter under the same handle (beaubashley) :))


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